Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is committed to ensuring that Irish Water serves the interests of all its customers. The regulator has been provided with statutory powers to act as the economic regulator. All of Irish Water's charges will be subject to regulatory approval and all the processes around that will be subject to approval. It is not what Irish Water wants to do; it is what the CER gives it the power to do and not to do. There is a big issue there which will be resolved independently if there are problems.

All of Uisce Éireann's charges will be subject to this approval. A policy direction will be issued to the regulator such that the decisions around the funding model will be built into the tariff structure. The regulator will undertake consultations in June 2014 before the tariffs are announced in August.

The Government has also made an announcement about the position of households without a meter when charges commence. We have announced that the charge will be assessed based primarily on occupancy and will be a close proxy to the actual meter charge. Moreover, where the household is subsequently metered, there will be a provision for rebates above a reasonable threshold if the usage has been assessed as too high.

The funding model announced by the Government is fair and has the interests of customers at heart. The average water charge will be €240, which compares very favourably with charges in the UK not to mention the charge in Northern Ireland which is, on average, €980 per household.

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