Charity gets €300,000 in water fee refunds

The Refund Project has reached almost €300,000 in donations after 1,600 households pledged some or all of the returned water charges.

The chairman of the Refund Project, Kieran Mulvey, said the response had been “excellent” and that the money would be going towards “shovel-ready projects” to address the homelessness crisis.

The latest figures from Irish Water show that cheques worth €149m have been issued to water customers — amounting to 86% of the 998,000 customers due to receive domestic charges refunds.

That means that another €24m in cheques is still to be refunded, although Irish Water said 10% of households would now probably not receive their cheque until the new year, with almost 19,000 customers who have registered for online account management needing to provide additional details.

The Refund Project was launched just last month after Focus Ireland, the Simon Community and the Peter McVerry Trust combined to appeal to households to donate some or all of their water refunds if they were in a position to do so.

Mr Mulvey said the project expects to break the €300,000 barrier by this morning.

The fund can already receive online donations at www.refundproject.ie and last week it also set up a PO Box at PO Box 12500, Dublin 2, for anyone wishing to send a separate cheque or postal order.

“We are getting a very steady response and it is increasing every day,” said Mr Mulvey.

“I look upon it as every euro they get is a new euro. We are asking people to leave a good legacy from what has been a bad experience.”