Seanad debates

Wednesday, 25 January 2012

An analysis has been carried out of why the collection rate for charges from non-domestic water users is around 52%. There are legacy issues involved; in other words, the bills owed this month in a particular county include unpaid amounts from companies that may have gone out of business. We need to get to the bottom of this. In addition, a significant amount of the uncollected moneys are owed by group water schemes and so on which have not paid for some time. All of these issues must be addressed. Another problem is that water in County Kildare costs about €1.32 per cubic metre, while the cost in County Wicklow, which adjoins it, is at least double that. Why do we have different charges in different counties? In the context of the new utility, there are strong arguments in favour of one national charge, as is the case for the ESB. There is also an argument, which some people made in today's newspaper, for regional water charges. We will come back to that issue. If there was a higher regional charge for electricity in the west, where so many more pylons must be erected, than in Dublin city, I do not think people would be too happy. There is a good argument to be made for everyone to share the pain nationally. We all go forward together with the plans, and if Cork benefits from my money, why should it not, if it gets the infrastructure it needs?

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