Battle over water charges hots up as grant deadline nears

The battle over water charges is hotting up this week as the deadline for a €100 water conservation grant nears.
Irish Water said that to date some 1.32m households have provided their details to Irish Water. It is refusing to say how many people have actually paid water charges.
The utility company said this week that the closing date for signing up to avail of the €100 grant was next Tuesday, June 30.
However, opponents of the charge have argued that despite a ‘massive propaganda campaign’ Irish Water’s registration figures had stagnated.
Ruth Coppinger TD said “This is another disaster for Irish Water whether they realise it or not. They are hoping to give the impression that there has been a rush of people to register, but a quick look at their previous press releases show that on March 19 they said that 1.23m people had registered.
“So between March and June 90,000 people have registered. This is despite a massive advertising and propaganda campaign. How much did each one of these registrations cost them in advertising? On top of this is the so called ‘conservation grant’ that is being presented as basically a free €100, and they still only got 90,000 new registrations?”
The €100 grant will be paid beginning in September 2015 to households that have registered with Irish Water by June 30.
To apply for the grant you first need to have registered with Irish Water, even if your household is not connected to the public water main or connected to the public sewer e.g. if you have your own source of water supply and sewage treatment, or if you are a group water scheme member and have a domestic sewage treatment system.
Meanwhile, Deputy Paul Murphy who has constantly sought to have official payment figures released hit out at Irish Water’s refusals.
“It is incredible that for the last two months we have been trying to find out through various means the payment figures from Irish Water and have been met by a wall of silence at every turn.
“We have pointed out how at different times they have released registration figures when it suited them and here again they are doing it, just days after the FOI officer at Irish Water rejected my appeal.
“One of the reasons they gave for refusing to release the payment figures is because the billing period hasn’t ended, yet the registration period hasn’t ended and here they are releasing the figure. Surely, according to their logic, this will affect how the business operates?