Irish Water delays plan to charge for excessive usage

Irish Water plans to charge for excessive water usage were delayed amid data protection fears and the need to build IT infrastructure.

Plans for Irish Water to charge 58,000 households for excessive water usage were delayed amid concerns over data protection and how to deal with customers that have no water meters.

Letters and information packs were being readied to send last October telling households what they could do to reduce their water consumption and how Irish Water could help.

Internal records obtained under Freedom of Information describe detailed talks to ensure that plans to start charging would be “very carefully managed”.

They explain how there would need to be messaging around how Irish Water were going to manage households that had no meters and how excessive use for them would be calculated.

Irish Water was prepared to start sending the letters as early as last October but the plan was postponed to deal with issues around how customer data would be managed, unmetered houses, and building IT infrastructure to support the project.

Discussions are currently under way with the Data Protection Commissioner over how the volume of personal data involved can be properly managed.

This would include names, addresses, water usage, the number of people living in each house, and special medical requirements of residents that might require additional water use.

It also includes strong indicators of when people are likely to be home based on when water is being, which in the event of a breach could create a burglary risk for households.

A spokeswoman for Irish Water said that household water conservation was a “unique project” and the Department of Housing were consulting with the Data Protection Commissioner.

She said: “[We have] taken all the necessary steps to try to ensure that our approach is in line with GDPR requirements and that all measures are taken to protect personal data.”

The spokeswoman said that while GDPR was a key issue, detailed work on customer communications, building IT systems to ensure accurate notification, and the creation of a workable standardised approach to identifying unmetered households were also “essential to the progression of the project.”

“All of these elements are reaching a state of readiness. The project cannot proceed unless and until all elements are ready,” she said.

The internal Irish Water records explain how the process for charging would happen with a ‘call to action’ letter and leaflet sent to households at first.

This would include a “step-by-step guide on what a customer in receipt of a letter should do next — what options are open to them, what help can Irish Water provide, what can the household do”.

Customers would be told how much water they had used in the preceding 12 months and that this was “above the excess threshold amount”.

A timeline shows the first letters were scheduled to be sent between October and December of last year; a second letter sent in January 2021, with the first bills issuing in July 2021