The short version: complain to your supplier first and get a complaint reference number. If the problem is a meter, a connection or an outage, it belongs to ESB Networks or Gas Networks Ireland, not the company on the bill. Once the supplier’s process has finished and you are still unhappy, the CRU’s Customer Care Team investigates for free. Small Claims is the last resort for a money claim of €2,000 or less.
The CRU will not open a case until the supplier’s process is complete — going to the regulator first just gets you sent back to step one.
What is the right order to escalate an energy complaint?
Irish energy complaints run on a ladder, and each rung is a precondition for the next. The design is deliberate: most complaints — a wrong estimated bill, a missed discount, a direct debit taken twice — are fixed fastest by the supplier itself, and the regulator only wants the cases the supplier genuinely failed to fix. Respect the order and the system works reasonably well. Skip a rung and you lose time at every level.
| Step | Who | When | What to bring |
|---|---|---|---|
| Step 1 | Your supplier | Immediately. Their code of practice states the timeline — Electric Ireland, for example, aims to resolve within 10 working days. | Account number, the disputed bill, meter reads, dates. Ask for a complaint reference number. |
| Step 2 | Your supplier — escalated | If the first answer does not satisfy you, ask for the complaint to be escalated internally and for a final written response. | Your complaint reference, what was said so far, and the outcome you want. |
| Step 3 | CRU Customer Care Team | Only after the supplier’s process has finished. Free. The CRU aims to resolve within 90 days, though it is currently running longer. | The supplier’s final response or notice of closure, your reference, bills, reads, all correspondence. |
| Step 4 | Small Claims procedure | A last extra for a money claim of €2,000 or less that everything above failed to settle — not a first step. | Evidence of the loss in euro: bills, payments, refund refusals. The fee is €25 and is not refundable. |
Two things sit outside the ladder entirely. Anything physical — meters, wires, pipes, outages — goes straight to the networks at any time. And an emergency is never a complaint: a smell of gas means ringing Gas Networks Ireland’s 24-hour emergency line immediately, full stop.
How do I complain to my supplier first?
Every supplier licensed in Ireland must publish a code of practice on complaint handling — the CRU requires it, and requires the timelines to be written into it. That document, usually alongside a customer charter, lives in the help or “codes of practice” section of the supplier’s website. It tells you exactly how to complain, who handles it, and how long each stage takes. Read it before you ring: quoting a supplier’s own charter back to it is the single most effective sentence in this entire process.
The mechanics are the same everywhere. Contact the supplier — phone is fine to start, but put anything substantial in writing so a record exists — state the problem, the account, and the outcome you want: a corrected bill, a refunded credit, a removed fee, an apology. Then do the one thing most people forget: ask for a complaint reference number. A reference turns a moan into a case. It is what the CRU will ask for later, and its absence is how complaints evaporate into “we have no record of that call”.
How long should you give them? Whatever their charter states — and it varies by brand, so check yours. As a live benchmark: Electric Ireland’s code of practice, which we checked this week, aims to resolve complaints within 10 working days, promises a named handler and a detailed response in the same window if it cannot, offers a manager review that makes contact within 5 days if you escalate, and commits to a final answer within two months. Its residential charter backs that with a €40 payment if the commitments are missed. Other suppliers publish their own windows in their own charters — hold them to those, not to Electric Ireland’s.
If the first answer does not satisfy you, say so and ask for the complaint to be escalated internally. You are aiming for the supplier’s final position in writing — a final response letter or a notice that the complaint is closed. That document is not a defeat; it is your ticket to the next rung. How a supplier behaves at this stage tells you a lot about it, which is why our reviews weigh service and complaint handling alongside price — see how Electric Ireland, Bord Gáis Energy, SSE Airtricity, Energia and the newer brands each handle the unglamorous side of the relationship.
When is my problem ESB Networks or Gas Networks Ireland, not the supplier?
This is the most common wrong door in Irish energy. The company that bills you owns nothing physical: ESB Networks owns and operates every electricity wire and meter in the state, and Gas Networks Ireland owns every gas pipe and gas meter — regardless of whose logo is on the bill. Complain to your supplier about a street outage and the best they can do is forward it. Here is what goes where:
| The problem | The right door | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Power cut / outage on the street | ESB Networks | They own and run the electricity network for every home, whoever bills you. Your supplier cannot restore power. |
| Smell of gas / suspected leak | Gas Networks Ireland — 24-hour emergency line | Ring the emergency number printed on every gas bill and on gasnetworksireland.ie first, before anything else. Never treat a leak as a complaint. |
| Broken, damaged or suspect meter | ESB Networks (electricity) / Gas Networks Ireland (gas) | The networks own the meters. Your supplier can log the fault for you, but the fix is a network job. |
| New connection, reconnection, moving a meter | ESB Networks / Gas Networks Ireland | Connections are network work with network fees — a supplier only bills you for units once the connection exists. |
| Wrong bill, missed discount, direct-debit mess | Your supplier | Billing, payments and tariffs are the retailer’s side of the fence. Start with their complaints process. |
| Switch gone wrong, marketing, doorstep sales | Your supplier (the one at fault) | Sales and switching conduct sit under each supplier’s codes of practice — and escalate to the CRU if unresolved. |
| Estimated reads stacking up | Submit a read first, then the supplier | An estimated bill is usually fixed by an actual reading, not a complaint. Complain if corrected reads keep being ignored. |
Both operators run their own contact and fault-reporting channels at esbnetworks.ie and gasnetworksireland.ie — and both have their own complaints processes too, which escalate to the same CRU service if unresolved. One row up there deserves its own note: if your real grievance is months of estimated bills, the fix is usually an actual meter reading, not a complaint — estimated readings explains why estimates happen and how to correct them. Complain when your corrected reads keep being ignored, not before.
What does the CRU’s free complaint-resolution service actually do?
The Commission for Regulation of Utilities is the energy regulator, and its Customer Care Team runs a genuinely independent dispute-resolution service for households — free, no solicitor, no fee at any stage. It covers unresolved complaints against suppliers and against the network operators. The complaint form and the current process live at cru.ie/make-a-complaint — go there for the details rather than relying on any summary, ours included.
The one rule that matters: the CRU will only take your complaint after the supplier’s own process has completed — you need their final response or written notice of closure in hand. This is why step order is not bureaucratic pedantry. A complaint sent to the CRU too early is not queued; it is returned, and the clock starts again from the supplier.
Once accepted, the process runs in stages: the CRU checks the complaint is eligible, investigates with both sides, produces a report you can comment on before it is finalised, and then issues a decision — with an appeal route if you disagree. The CRU aims to resolve complaints within 90 days, and says candidly that current volumes are pushing investigations past that. Build the patience in. Two protections make the wait bearable: the service costs you nothing however long it runs, and where the dispute is about a billed amount, collection activity on the contested sum is expected to pause while the investigation is live. Keep paying the undisputed part of your bills as normal — an artificial arrears pile helps nobody, least of all you.
Worth knowing before you start: the CRU resolves individual disputes and can direct redress, but it is not a compensation lottery — the usual outcomes are corrected bills, refunds of what was wrongly taken, charter payments the supplier should have made, and instructions to fix process. Go in with a specific, evidenced ask and the process suits you; go in with general fury and it has nothing to work with.
What evidence should I gather before I complain?
Every rung of the ladder runs on paper, and the household that kept records beats the household that kept feelings. Before you make the first call, assemble this — and keep adding to it as the complaint runs:
- The bills in dispute — the PDFs or paper copies themselves, not just the amounts. Every bill carries your account number, MPRN or GPRN, and the reads it was built on.
- Meter readings with dates — ideally photographs, which timestamp themselves. If the fight is about estimates versus actuals, photos are the whole case.
- A timeline — when the problem started, every call and email since, who you spoke to, what was promised. Write it as it happens; reconstructed timelines leak.
- Your complaint reference number(s) — from the supplier, and later from the CRU. No reference, no case.
- The supplier’s final response — the letter or email that closes their process. This is the key that opens the CRU’s door.
- Contracts and offers — the sign-up confirmation, the advertised discount, the welcome pack. Disputes about “the deal I was promised” die without the promise in writing.
- Proof of payments — bank statements showing direct debits taken, top-ups made, refunds not received.
- The outcome you want, in one sentence — a number where possible. “Refund the €X taken after I cancelled” gets processed; “sort this out” gets sympathy.
The habit generalises: the reads you photograph on switch day are the same evidence that settles a final-bill fight months later — what happens when you switch shows where those numbers come from, and cooling-off covers the paper trail for cancelling a contract you regret.
When is the Small Claims procedure worth using?
The Small Claims procedure is the District Court’s low-cost route for consumer money claims of €2,000 or less, and for energy disputes it is a last extra — a fourth rung, never a shortcut past the CRU. It costs €25 (not refundable, even if you win), needs no solicitor, and a small-claims registrar contacts both sides and tries to settle the matter before a judge ever sees it. The forms and guides are on courts.ie.
When does it earn its place? When a concrete sum of money survives everything above it: a credit balance never refunded, an exit fee charged in breach of the contract, a charter payment promised and never made. It is a blunt instrument for anything else — it cannot make a supplier fix a process, apologise, or behave better next year, and for a pure billing dispute the CRU route is free where this one costs €25. Use it when the ladder is exhausted and the loss is specific, evidenced and under the limit.
Can matched.ie handle my complaint about a supplier?
No — and we would rather say it in bold than let you lose a week finding out. matched.ie is a comparison and reviews site. We are not the regulator, not a complaints body, and not a CRU-accredited price-comparison site — the CRU publishes its list of accredited comparators at cru.ie, and we are not on it. Emailing us — or any comparison site — about your supplier moves your complaint precisely nowhere.
The bodies with actual statutory teeth are the ones on the ladder above: your supplier’s complaints team, ESB Networks and Gas Networks Ireland for anything physical, and the CRU’s Customer Care Team. What we can do is what this page does — map the route — and factor complaint handling into our rankings so the suppliers who handle it badly feel it where they notice.
What if the real problem is a bill I cannot pay?
A complaint and a debt are different problems wearing similar clothes, and they have different doors. If the bill is wrong, that is a complaint — climb the ladder. If the bill is right but unpayable, complaining will not shrink it: what you need is a payment plan, which suppliers must offer, and possibly MABS, the free State money-advice service that will negotiate with a supplier on your behalf and carries real weight when it does.
Mind the interaction between the two. Arrears of €225 or more that are over 60 days old can flag and block a switch away from the supplier you are fighting with — so if your exit plan is “complain, then leave”, deal with the balance in parallel. Switching in arrears covers exactly how the debt flag works and the order to tackle it in. And if the dispute itself created the arrears — a catch-up bill after months of under-estimates, say — keep paying the undisputed portion while the complaint runs, and put the disputed figure in writing so it is clearly contested rather than simply unpaid.
Where to next?
- Estimated meter readings — the most common complaint trigger, and how to fix it with a reading instead.
- Switching with arrears — the €225 / 60-day debt flag, and leaving a supplier you owe.
- What happens when you switch — closing reads, final bills and refunds, before they become disputes.
- Exit fees — what leaving early legitimately costs, so you can spot a fee that should not be there.
- The supplier reviews, where service and complaint handling are part of every verdict: Electric Ireland, Bord Gáis Energy, SSE Airtricity, Energia, Yuno, Flogas, Prepay Power, Pinergy and Community Power.
