Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

Provision will also be made for the automatic creation of a statutory charge on a dwelling in respect of unpaid water charges.

I accept there are many people in financial difficulty and, as Minister, I will be insisting that Irish Water distinguish between those who want to pay but cannot, and those who simply refuse to pay. Those who want to pay but are in financial difficulty, as I have already mentioned, will have the potential to avail of easy-pay options and instalment plans and to enter pay agreements, as they can for any of the other utilities we are all familiar with. Those who do not register and do not pay will not be able to avail of the water conservation grant and can be pursued by Irish Water. As indicated earlier, Irish Water will have the ability to apply the charge to a property in the event of non-payment following the passage of legislation.

As I outlined at the start of my remarks, the new capped charges for single adult households and for all other households will apply until 1 January 2019. This will allow sufficient time for the metering of all properties where it is technically feasible to do so. In fact, only this morning I learned that the number of installed meters had surpassed 500,000. A second short regulatory period will apply in 2017 and 2018, in respect of which Irish Water will submit its costs and capital plans in order for the CER to set the overall allowed revenue, approve capital investment levels and set the tariffs for non-domestic customers. It will be open to the CER to reduce the per-unit price of €3.70 per 1,000 litres after 2016 in the context of determining the allowed revenue and efficiency challenges for 2017 and 2018.

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