Seán Sherlock (Cork East, Labour)
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289. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government if all refund cheques issued to Irish Water customers have been credited to their accounts; if not, the amount outstanding on Irish Water bank balances in respect of refunds; and the status of same. [47302/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In keeping with the spirit of the provisions for the refund of domestic water charges under the Water Services Act 2017, and the earlier recommendations of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services on this matter, all reasonable efforts continue to be made to refund in full the amounts due to relevant domestic customers of Irish Water.

My Department provided funding of €177,535,103 to Irish Water in 2017 to cover the costs involved in refunding some 995,000 domestic customers who had paid water charges in full or in part. This included a provision of €5,869,630 for administration costs.

On 31 July 2018 Irish Water returned €6.51m of this funding to Government based on €5.17m in respect of customers where data inadequacies had prevented refunds being made, and €1.34m in respect of cheques that were cancelled and not yet reissued. These figures were based on reconciliations up to 25 July 2018.

As of 31 October 2018, there were 71,109 cheques to a total value of €9.03m which have been issued but not cashed (this includes the €1.34m element of the funds returned to the Department as outlined above). Cancellation and reissue of cheques is entirely driven by customer requests and customer engagement is ongoing through Irish Water’s Customer Contact Centre.

There is no cut-off date for the making of refunds, and all reasonable efforts will continue to be made by Irish Water to facilitate customers who require a cheque to be cancelled and reissued, or who may be entitled to a refund they have not yet received. Any of the remaining funding allocation given to Irish Water for the purpose of refunding water charges to relevant domestic customers and which cannot be used for that purpose, will in time be returned to the Exchequer in line with standard financial procedures.