Just 46% of Irish Water clients have paid bill

Irish Water is expected to announce today that less than half of its customers have paid water charges.

Just 46% of households who must pay have done so, the company will say, almost eight months to the day since the Coalition announced the revised flat-rate charging scheme.

Government sources confirmed the figures yesterday and said the board of Irish Water was being notified of the payments before they are announced by the semi-state company today.

“They are quite good given the opposition to the charges,” said a Government source. “They will climb substantially with the new measures coming in too. The problem is a lot of people leave it until the last minute.”

Households were given until the end of June to register with Irish Water to be allowed apply for conservation grants, which will be given to customers in September. Under the revised charging structure announced by the Government last November, single adult households in receipt of the grant will pay a maximum €60 a year while multi-adult residences must pay €160 a year.

Figure is actually only 43% payment. What a disaster for #IrishWater and #watercharges. #wewontpay

— Paul Murphy 🇵🇸 (@paulmurphy_TD) July 14, 2015

However, there is no official deadline for when households must pay their bills. Under legislation passed by the Coalition last week, customers cannot be taken to court and forced to pay their charges until at least seven unpaid bills have passed — by which time it would be 2017.

People must have unpaid water bills of at least €500 before they are taken to court for debts to be deducted from salary, welfare or pensions.

In May, the Irish Examiner revealed the average rate of registration up until February was 69%, with 10 of 26 counties having registration rates above 75%.

As of last month, more than 1.3m people had registered with Irish Water. It is expected the company will today say that 1m of these are customers who are required to pay charges. The rest include households which, while not paying for charges because they are on water schemes or have their own wells, will be entitled to the conservation grants. This means 540,000 households, having registered as customers, have yet to pay charges.

Anti-Austerity Alliance TD Paul Murphy said he and colleagues had tried six times over two months to obtain figures from Irish Water about the numbers who had paid their bills.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny surprised the Dublin TD when the Fine Gael leader said that Irish Water would reveal the data today. A Government spokesman said the Cabinet did not discuss the figures at its weekly meeting yesterday.

Irish Water refused to answer questions on the payment figures last night and would only say they would be released today.

The first billing cycle for Irish Water has just finished after bills for the first quarter of the year were delivered between April and last month. It is understood the board of Ervia, Irish Water’s parent firm, is aware of the level of payments.

The Government came under pressure in recent weeks to publish the payment figures after introducing sanctions or compliance measures to force tenants to pay charges and deduct people’s wages or dole if bills remain unpaid.

Anti-water charge campaigners are expected to use the low payment levels to criticise Irish Water and raise questions about whether the project has worked.

Meanwhile, the Right2Water campaign has announced proposals for a further national demonstration against water charges on August 29. “It’s very clear this government believes the water charges issue has gone away,” the group said in a statement. “We’re saying very firmly that it hasn’t and this will be the biggest issue when it comes to the next general election.”

The payment rates may also raise questions as to whether Irish Water will pass a Eurostat test this year as an independent entity.