Staff at ESB have voted for industrial action in a row over their company pension scheme.

Workers voted by a margin of 7-to-1 to take action over plans to pay a major dividend to the government.

ESB paid a dividend of €78 million to the State earlier this year, in a move which workers said was in breach of a previous deal.

They say the company should instead be putting the money into the company pension scheme which has a deficit of around €1.5 billion.

Unions will decide later this week what form the industrial action should take.