From October 2014 all households in Ireland will be charged for water. The average charge is supposed to be €240 a year - but the charges could range from €0.00 to €700 a year.
Eventually - the plan is - that most homes will have water meters and charges will be based on usage.
There will be a certain amount of water that will be "free" - this is expected to be the first 7500 litres each quarter (30000 litres a year) per household.
Meters will not be installed in all homes that are due to have them until 2016. Some homes will never have meters installed. Unmetered homes will still have to pay for water - but the charge will be "assessed" based on average/estimated usage for similar households.
Water charges will be made up of a charge for water used and wastewater processed (sewage).
Many rural homes are not connected to the mains sewage - and therefore will not be charged for their wastewater . We expect the water bills to be about 55% for wastewater and 45% for water usage.
If a home has it's own well or private water supply - they will not be charged for water supply.
There are some estimates of how much the water charges will be here.
Currently the expenditure on domestic water services in Ireland is covered by government (From taxation).
The 34 local authorites were responsible for water services - but now a new semi-state body called Irish Water has taken on responsibility and they will be issuing the bills.
First water bills are due in Jan 2015 - with charges for Oct Nov and Dec 2014 .
1 comment:
I am sure that the charges are going to rise after the first year. What is really important for the house holder is to ensure that they are only paying for water they use and not what is leaking away on them. I have started a blog on household leak detection
It will inform customers on how to tell if they have a leak or not.
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