Water charge of up to €400 before meters installed

Households will have to pay a flat rate fee of up to €400 per year for two years while Irish Water completes the installation of meters in more than one million homes.

Irish Water yesterday confirmed it will start the process of installing the meters within “a number of weeks”, and that “it is going to take 2.5 to three years to fully install meters in all qualifying properties”.

Irish Water Board chief executive John Mullins said it would only start tendering for the meters themselves through a Europe-wide process next month and that, in order to start the installation process, it would need to survey every water main in the country, “going down every road and every avenue”.

“Once we survey an area, we will go in with a boundary box once they are procured, and then we will go in with a meter,” he said. “Essentially we will go through the country on a regional basis. We will have regionally based subcontractors across the country and they will supply the labour required to do the work.

“Our view, based on available boundary boxes internationally, availability of meters, getting the labour force out, is that we will do 27,000 to 30,000 per month effectively.”

Asked what the flat-rate charge applied to homes awaiting meters is likely to be, Mr Mullins said the charges were a matter for the Commission for Energy Regulation.

“If you look at the charges that are in place internationally, you could be looking at anywhere between €100-€400 and that is based on OECD numbers.”

Mr Mullins said the intention was that, as meters are commissioned, people will convert over to a metered charge.

“Benchmarking internationally shows there will be at least 12% conservation as a result,” he added.

Mr Mullins said the funding of the water sector will not only come from monies raised through charges upon business and domestic customers.

“The State is going to have to support the water industry for many years to come,” he said.

The Department of the Environment said the flat rate charge and the metering charges had not yet been decided.

Fianna Fáil criticised the delay in getting the meters installed.

The party’s environment spokesman, Barry Cowen, said: “We were promised, on the appointment of Irish Water from within Bord Gáis, that we would have full installation of water meters by 2014. We were promised there would be a fixing of charges in this regard by the regulator, with Irish Water having provided an audit of the system as it was and what repairs were to be carried out, not to mention 2,000 jobs.

“Now we have a situation where we won’t have metering by 2016 or 2017.

“Irish Water was appointed from within Bord Gáis on the basis of deliverability, on the basis of the commitment they gave on foot of the Government’s tendering of the process. Here we are a short year later, despite all the fanfare at that time, with a situation whereby again there is no control of this.

“We would like the minister to come out and clearly give a signal as to what is the case. Is it that some sectors of society or the country again will be asked to pay a flat charge while others who have metering will be paying under a different system?”