Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Water Services Act 2013 provided for the establishment of Irish Water as an independent subsidiary within the Bord Gáis Éireann Group and assigned the company the necessary powers to allow it to undertake the water metering programme.

Most meters for public utilities are located at the point where the connection enters the household. In the case of water services, under the provisions of the Water Services Act 2007, households’ pipes internal to the boundary of a property are considered the responsibility of the householder, and thus water meters are being fitted at the stopcock at the boundary of the property. Meters will be read automatically and the information will be provided directly to customers in their bills.

Of the estimated 1.35 million domestic properties connected to public water supplies, approximately 300,000 properties will not be metered as part of the current phase, due to the cost or technical difficulty of doing so. These properties would include apartment blocks, other multi-occupancy buildings and houses with shared service connections. Irish Water commissioned a study on possible approaches to metering properties that are not part of the current metering programme, including apartments and properties with shared service connections. This report has been submitted to my Department and its recommendations are being considered. In particular, my Department is exploring with Irish Water the potential to include a new phase of metering of some 48,000 apartments, which the report suggests can be easily metered as part of a separate procurement.

Households that are connected to the public water supply, but do not have a water meter installed, will be charged on an assessed basis, primarily based on occupancy. There will also be provision for a rebate, when a customer moves from an assessed charge to a metered charge and usage is deemed above a reasonable threshold by comparison to the subsequent metered usage.

The proposed approach to charging has been outlined by Irish Water in a water charges plan which it has submitted to the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) in line with the provisions of the Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013 . The CER is responsible for approving the plan. I understand that the CER will initiate a public consultation shortly in relation to the water charges plan. Full details of the CER’s public consultation plans are available on its website ().