Irish Water fails to meet targets for responding to complaints
The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities says it will assess Irish Water’s 2021 performance after Irish Water submits a report with its metrics in the third quarter of 2022.
Irish Water failed to meet a number of targets set for it by the regulator, with the amount of wastewater incidents reported in 2020 a "significant increase” compared to previous years.
From a total of 20 targets, Irish Water failed to meet 13 of them, including how soon it responded to all the complaints it received, internal sewer incidents, and wastewater incidents.
The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU) looks at the number of pollution incidents resulting from wastewater collection and treatment activities, as well as recurring incidents.
In 2020, from a target set of 665 or less, Irish Water reported 1,108 once-off incidents. Each incident is rated on a scale of 1-5, with 5 deemed a “catastrophic” incident. There was one in category three, where untreated effluent at Ringsend in Dublin discharged into the Naniken River for a total of five days. CRU had set a target of zero incidents in this category.
CRU is targeting the elimination of incidents that occur due to the operation, management and maintenance of wastewater treatment plants by the end of 2024. In 2020, 40% of once-off incidents were as a result of this.
It also monitors ongoing or likely to recur incidents. From a target of 191 or less in 2020, Irish Water reported 238 such incidents.
In its report, CRU said that one of its major concerns related to Irish Water’s ability to comply “not only with CRU targets by the end of this period but to comply with relevant EU legislation”.
“Most notably, the CRU does not consider Irish Water to be on track to meet its targets to provide wastewater treatment at all of its agglomerations nor to meet its target to be 100% compliant with the Urban Waste Water Treatment Directive by the end of 2024,” it said.
On Irish Water’s customer service, CRU said: “The CRU welcomes Irish Water’s improvement and stability under many of its customer service metrics. Customer satisfaction with contact with Irish Water improved, call abandonment rate was kept to a minimum, and the number of billing contacts answered and closed out within five working days was high.
“While Irish Water may have missed some ease of telephone contact targets in 2020 (eg speed of telephone response, first call resolution), it was still close to the targets and is currently on track to improve its performance to the end of the period to meet these targets.”
CRU added that it will assess Irish Water’s 2021 performance after Irish Water submits a report with its metrics in the third quarter of 2022.
In response to the CRU report, an Irish Water spokesperson said that it recognised the “strong progress” the company was making.
The spokesperson said: “There is no doubt that challenges remain and that continued investment in wastewater will be required in the coming years.
“Much of the infrastructure for safely collecting and treating wastewater around the country has suffered from decades of under-investment and as a result incidents do sometimes occur related to wastewater collection and treatment activities. Irish Water has a plan in place to address these challenges and we are making real progress in upgrading wastewater treatment infrastructure in towns and villages throughout Ireland.”
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