Bord Gáis urge ’patience’ as criticisms of PR work mounts

Bord Gáis urge ‘patience’ as criticisms mount


Michael Duffy

CASTLEBAR town councillor Brendan Henaghan has criticised the public relations work being done by Bord Gáis in Castlebar.
Cllr Henaghan made his comments at last week’s meeting of Castlebar Town Council after reading reports that the company had put ‘on hold’ their plans to bring gas into Ballinrobe due to a poor response from the business community.
“It’s no wonder there is a poor response in Ballinrobe if Bord Gáis’s PR people are behaving the way they are in Castlebar,“ said Cllr Henaghan, who owns a health food shop in Castlebar town centre.
“I spoke to one of their reps a while back and I did not even get the courtesy of a reply. In economic times like these, the customer will not come looking to spend money so I can’t understand why Bord Gáis are going about their business like this. It’s not good enough,” said the Fine Gael councillor.
However, Elaine Hattie, communications manager with Bord Gáis, told The Mayo News yesterday (Monday) that the company had already secured 100 customers across the county and had a large number of staff on the ground approaching businesses.
“Obviously I am not going to comment on individual cases but our sales manager in Mayo will be in touch with the councillor in question. We do not sit and wait for businesses to contact us, we have staff on the ground right across County Mayo and they are generally happy with the response they have been receiving. In the current economic climate, businesses obviously have budgetary constraints and with conversion costs involved, we don’t expect huge numbers overnight but we are working hard at informing businesses of the benefits of natural gas,” said Ms Hattie, who also urged patience in relation to the provision of natural gas to smaller towns like Ballinrobe.
“People must remember that it has to be commercially viable for us to bring gas to a town and the business community of Ballinrobe were aware of this from day one. Obviously in towns where there are not as many large businesses it may take a while longer but I know the Ballinrobe businesses community have rallied and in conjunction with those businesses we hope to bring gas to Ballinrobe as soon as it is commercially viable,” added Ms Hattie.