Water charges for excessive usage

K.Flyer

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Why should IW be treated any different than the ESB? They both maintain national infrastructure that supplies consumed and necessary to every property?

Seriously?
Irish water were a shambles from the beginning, from their convoluted efforts to bill people to their PR.
Every property that uses electricity and is connected to the grid has a meter and charged for usage.
They only require one name to be responsible for that bill, not how many are in the house, the pps numbers of each occupant etc, and only so many properties will be metered the rest to be a flat fee and use what they like.
It's not as if we had no water or discussions about charges before IW. If there was a wrong way to go about setting it up IW ticked every box.

Benedict

K.Flyer wrote: »

Seriously?
Irish water were a shambles from the beginning, from their convoluted efforts to bill people to their PR.
Every property that uses electricity and is connected to the grid has a meter and charged for usage.
They only require one name to be responsible for that bill, not how many are in the house, the pps numbers of each occupant etc, and only so many properties will be metered the rest to be a flat fee and use what they like.
It's not as if we had no water or discussions about charges before IW. If there was a wrong way to go about setting it up IW ticked every box.

Yes, but if there was a rule that people without meters paid a flat fee and those with meters paid according to usage, then those without a meter could argue that they only use a small amount so if they had a meter, they would pay less. This again would be unfair to those who want a meter but cannot get one. Those who use massive amounts would be happy - but not those who use very little.

Remember that only slightly more than half the homes in Ireland have meters.

charlie14

jimmycrackcorm wrote: »

Why should IW be treated any different than the ESB? They both maintain national infrastructure that supplies consumed and necessary to every property?

When did paying for electricity change from general taxation to metering

K.Flyer

Benedict wrote: »

Yes, but if there was a rule that people without meters paid a flat fee and those with meters paid according to usage, then those without a meter could argue that they only use a small amount so if they had a meter, they would pay less. This again would be unfair to those who want a meter but cannot get one. Those who use massive amounts would be happy - but not those who use very little.

Remember that only slightly more than half the homes in Ireland have meters.

Which proves that the manner in which Irish Water went about attempting to charge for water, flip flopping from one idea to another, metering some but no plans ever to meter others (apartments), was farcical from the outset.

Benedict

If they introduce a flat fee they cannot link it to whether or not you have a meter. If they did, other problems of unfairness could arise.

The fact is that any future fee-charging system must completely ignore the meters.

The next question is what happens when the meters begin to need maintenance work. Will it be better to simply remove them one by one as problems occur and sell them for scrap?

Why spend more money servicing meters which will never be used?

And could it happen that a malfunctioning meter could cause water-flow problems for the associated home-owner?

charlie14

Anybody hoping for the return of water charges hear the reply by an Taoiseach yesterday when asked about it ?

branie2

Not me

charlie14

branie2 wrote: »

Not me

Short version of a short answer. Not happening.

_Kaiser_

charlie14 wrote: »

Short version of a short answer. Not happening.

Even Micheal knows he has enough on his plate with the anger over the housing situation, and the other issues that haven't gone away and are re-emerging with the receding of the Covid issue, that to poke the public further by having another go at water charges would be political suicide.

charlie14

_Kaiser_ wrote: »

Even Micheal knows he has enough on his plate with the anger over the housing situation, and the other issues that haven't gone away and are re-emerging with the receding of the Covid issue, that to poke the public further by having another go at water charges would be political suicide.

I believe even Fine Gael know it at this stage. Michael Noonan called it correctly in 2016 when he compared water charges electorally to a dead cat on a pitch

Yellow_Fern

Does any one here have experience dealing with the new Water.ie service. I have an old terrace shop front with a very convoluted water supply and Id love a meter installed. Are they straightforward to deal with?