Households billed for up to 10 times amounts owed due to Gas Networks Ireland glitch

Domestic gas customers around Ireland have been issued with estimated bills that are up to 10 times the amounts owed, as a result of glitch in the Gas Networks Ireland (GNI) system, The Irish Times has learned. The network operator apologised to impacted customers and said it was still trying to establish how many bills were affected. It said the cause of the problem had been identified and fixed. Bills that are issued by all the State’s providers have potentially been impacted. GNI said they had all paused issuing new bills until they could be sure the bills would more accurately reflect the amounts owed. READ MOREOne customer based in Dublin was shocked when he opened his gas bill on Wednesday and read that he owed 10 times what he had actually used over the billing period. Other gas users were told that their bill was more than three times the true amount owed based on the gas they had used. “Gas Networks Ireland was made aware of an issue affecting a number of estimated gas meter readings provided to gas suppliers,” a spokeswoman said. “The cause of this issue has been identified and fixed. Gas suppliers have been informed and have paused issuing further bills to customers.” She said the network operator was “now working closely with gas suppliers and the Commission for Regulation of Utilities to address the affected readings and to ensure that the necessary corrections are made to those customer bills”.The spokeswoman said GNI “apologise for any unnecessary worry and inconvenience caused to any gas customers”.The latest issue with domestic energy bills has echoes of a glitch that hit users of smart electricity meters earlier this year. On that occasion a software update led to customers mistakenly being told their usage had soared.Some customers with smart meters were told they had run up bills of more than €5,000 over the course of a single day. As with the GNI problem, customers of multiple providers were impacted.