Elderly Parents with super high bills (over €1500 for two months!)

Hi, 

I'm writing on behalf of my elderly parents who are at their wits' end with the price of their bills which are over €6000 annually (if not more!).  They are currently with Bord Gais but are considering changing but really need some advice on what to do about the price of their bills.

To give some background on their usage and habits: they live in a large-ish house in the country but only use about half of it (kitchen, bedrooms, bathrooms and TV room). They both sleep in separate bedrooms as my father has to sleep downstairs and he tends to listen to audio books rather than watch TV while my mother will watch TV in the evenings. There are 5 storage heaters that are used in the house, a fridge-freezer, washing machine and tumble dryer (not used too often) and a chest freezer. They have the storage heaters on during the winter months (Dec - mid-March) from 12 midnight - 8am. They have two emersions - one for the kitchen and one for the bedroom area and an electric shower - the water emersions are only on for an hour early morning. They have a water pump but have been told it doesn't use up too much electricity. 

They have bills of €1700/per two months for the winter months and €600 - 700/per two months during the rest of the year.

We just got the electrician in from Electric Ireland to check the meter and he said that the estimate is out by €200 but the bills still seem extortionate! My mother has had in electricians who have checked the appliances are running okay and we have been told that everything is running fine, though perhaps the chest freezer will need to be replaced (which she is doing).

Everyone agrees that at those rates, it's like a commercial property (I assure you it's solely a domestic property!) and added to this there is a multiplier of 60 on the bill as they slowed down the meter as it was turning over too fast but I'm wondering if this is the correct multiplier that has been applied? 

I find it incredulous that they are paying over €6000 (if not more!) annually so I figured perhaps the multiplier that they have (60x) is miscalculated perhaps? I'm not sure of how to check that and my mother forgot to draw attention to it when the electrician came in to check the meter. They also use a calor gas heater and gas imitation fires to heat the house!!

I would really appreciate any help with this issue as for an elderly couple this is most frustrating for them and I'm not sure where to go next or who can help with this issue.  They would be willing to pay for a contracter to check the validity of their usage but they have already had someone looking at it a number of months ago (a former colleague of my father's) but he couldn't come to any conclusion why their bills were so [font=arial, sans-serif-light, sans-serif]exorbitant[/font].  They hazarded a guess that it was due to the storage heaters but then why are the bills so high when they don't have any heaters on during the summer?

Thank you in advance for any suggestions and feedback!