Irish Water - It never rains but it pours

THE latest twist in the Irish Water saga is that customers who fail to pay their charges will not be entitled to any rebate under an additional penalty being imposed by the company.

News of this measure could hardly have broken at a worse time for the beleaguered company which is trying to get its 1.5m customers to pay their bills on time.

Even though the first rebates are not due until next January for customers whose metered consumption in the first year is less than the capped charge, with protesters in jail on hunger strike, the measure is bound to inflame resentment among those opposed paying for the scheme aimed at improving the country’s ailing water system.

Irish Water has set aside €11.3m for paying the once-off rebates to customers over the next two years.

The measure was one of several penalties considered by the company for non-payment of water charges after it was ordered to drop the controversial idea of reducing water supply to homes.

That was hardly surprising, since the United Nations criticised the idea as inhumane.

More than anything, it illustrated the degree of Government alarm over the strength of resistance to its project.

From the outset, the Coalition’s handling of the scheme was shambolic.

Its introduction, on top of an array of punitive taxes to pay for the bank bailout, showed that highly paid politicians were utterly out of touch with the mood of an angry public.