Michael Creed (Cork North West, Fine Gael)
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547. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government his views, that commercial premises with no public water supply should be exempt from a charge by the local authority for non-domestic water; that in circumstances where such premises only have a domestic supply, any attempt to charge for non-domestic water is, in effect, double billing; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [39450/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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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 shall 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. Any business connected to a public water supply is liable for charges as a non-domestic customer. If the premises is also used for domestic purposes it is termed a mixed - use customer. Mixed - use customers will be billed separately for their domestic and non-domestic water services and will have a separate account number for each. Mixed-use customers will be charged for the domestic component of their usage based on occupancy. For the domestic component, single adult households will pay a maximum of €160 per year; multi-adult households will pay a maximum of €260 a year. Mixed-use dwellings that register with Irish Water are eligible for the annual €100 water conservation grant.

It should be noted that the existing arrangements for all non-domestic customers are remaining in place with no changes for the time being. On this basis, the local authorities will continue to bill for non-domestic water services as agents of Irish Water and the non-domestic component of their consumption will continue to be charged according to the current non-domestic tariff arrangement. In the case of a metered customer, the volume to be charged at the non-domestic rate will continue to be the metered volume in excess of the current local authority domestic allowance. As part of the water pricing policy which provided for non-domestic water charges, local authorities were required to provide mixed-use customers with an allowance in respect of their domestic consumption.

The CER will be reviewing all aspects of non-domestic water tariffs under a series of public consultations and will shortly publish the time-line for this process.