Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left)
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987. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government in view of Irish Water's announcement that it intends to apply call-out fees of €188 for the first hour when repairing a suspected leak on a householder’s property and €94 an hour thereafter, and that out-of-hours charges will be higher, at €282 for the first hour and €141 thereafter, if the first fix free commitment is being eliminated or if call-out fees will to be applicable to call outs subsequent to the first fix free call-out. [41042/14]

Peter Mathews (Dublin South, Independent)
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1039. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government regarding Irish Water, if he will confirm that citizens will be charged for a call out and leak fix should it be necessary; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [41627/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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I propose to take Questions Nos. 987 and 1039 together.

With effect from 1 January 2014, Irish Water is responsible for public water services. The Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013 provides that Irish Water can collect charges from its customers in receipt of water services provided by it. The Act also provides that responsibility for the independent economic regulation of the water sector is assigned to the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) and the CER has been given statutory responsibility for protecting the interests of customers.

Under the Water Services Act 2007, repair and maintenance of households’ pipes internal to the curtilage of a property are considered the responsibility of the householder. Irish Water is required by the CER to provide for optional services for the customer should they choose to avail of them (the CER has indicated that it will be reviewing the level of charges for these services). However, it is important to note that these are optional services. There is no obligation on customers to avail of such services through Irish Water; customers will be free to engage other providers of such services, if they wish to do so.

The Government has agreed to provide additional funding to Irish Wat er for their capital investment to include a free first fix scheme.

Irish Water has submitted a draft first fix policy to the CER for approval. It is understood that the CER intend to hold a public consultation in advance of a dec ision and implementation of this scheme i n Quarter 1 2015.The CER has decided that where a customer leak has been identified under the ‘first fix’ policy, the customers’ charges will be capped at the assessed level until the leak is fixed by Irish Water.

Irish Water has established a dedicated team to deal with representations and queries from public representatives and is contacting all Oireachtas members to provide details of an improved level of service which it is aiming to provide. The team can be contacted via email to oireachtasmembers@water.ieor by telephone on a new dedicated number, 1890 578 578.