Water charges for excessive usage

Brendan Bendar · 16-10-2019 1:40pm

There won’t be any frogs jumping out of any pots, I would opine.

Middle Ireland was stiffed once, the one thing that MI don’t like is being stiffed.

Trust me on that one.

Middle Ireland,whilst being generally in favour of the ‘big picture’ are not idiots.

They have the outlook of taking pain for the good of the country, unlike a certain coterie who unless the issues are beneficial to their own situations will oppose vehemently.

This coterie always want costs and work practices and efficiencies -ergo value to the taxpayer, to be buried deep into ‘general taxation’.

This masks the actual real costs of services which is usually the real driver of these protest campaigns.

‘Don’t single us out’ would be the underlying mantra.

Going back to IW my advice from MI to those trying to ignore a ‘Meter one-Meter all’ strategy would be as a staunch Middle Irelander x Dept. Sec. said.

“ They can get up on our backs, but don’t try to piss down our necks”

Anyone who tries to implement water charges on the current basis would do well to frame that quote and remember that expression.

charlie14 · 16-10-2019 6:30pm

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

There won’t be any frogs jumping out of any pots, I would opine.

Middle Ireland was stiffed once, the one thing that MI don’t like is being stiffed.

Trust me on that one.

Middle Ireland,whilst being generally in favour of the ‘big picture’ are not idiots.

They have the outlook of taking pain for the good of the country, unlike a certain coterie who unless the issues are beneficial to their own situations will oppose vehemently.

This coterie always want costs and work practices and efficiencies -ergo value to the taxpayer, to be buried deep into ‘general taxation’.

This masks the actual real costs of services which is usually the real driver of these protest campaigns.

‘Don’t single us out’ would be the underlying mantra.

Going back to IW my advice from MI to those trying to ignore a ‘Meter one-Meter all’ strategy would be as a staunch Middle Irelander x Dept. Sec. said.

“ They can get up on our backs, but don’t try to piss down our necks”

Anyone who tries to implement water charges on the current basis would do well to frame that quote and remember that expression.

I`m presuming this "Middle Ireland" you keep referring to is not some geographical group around Athlone but Ireland`s middle class. If I am correct in that then your argument has little substance I`m afraid.

The projected income by IW when they were charging for domestic metered water over those 5 cycles was 1,028M.
They received 519M. As near as makes no difference 50% non compliance.

To attempt to make the claim that this "coterie" making up this 50% did not include large number of Ireland`s middle class is ludicrous both statistically as well as mathematically from the number of them that marched in the protests scaring the life out of FG TD`s seeing their own voter base protesting.
To make the assumption that those that did pay from "Middle Ireland" did so because they saw this "big picture" of yours and were happy doing so is equally ludicrous on the subsequent GE results imho.

Lucky for that Dept. Sec. that he is retired, and especially lucky for whatever Minister whose Dept. he would now be Sec. off.

If he gave the advice to attempt to continue metering all and that Minister took it. both would be pissing away their careers.

Brendan Bendar · 16-10-2019 6:47pm

charlie14 wrote: »

I`m presuming this "Middle Ireland" you keep referring to is not some geographical group around Athlone but Ireland`s middle class. If I am correct in that then your argument has little substance I`m afraid.

The projected income by IW when they were charging for domestic metered water over those 5 cycles was 1,028M.
They received 519M. As near as makes no difference 50% non compliance.

To attempt to make the claim that this "coterie" making up this 50% did not include large number of Ireland`s middle class is ludicrous both statistically as well as mathematically from the number of them that marched in the protests scaring the life out of FG TD`s seeing their own voter base protesting.
To make the assumption that those that did pay from "Middle Ireland" did so because they saw this "big picture" of yours and were happy doing so is equally ludicrous on the subsequent GE results imho.

Lucky for that Dept. Sec. that he is retired, and especially lucky for whatever Minister whose Dept. he would now be Sec. off.

If he gave the advice to attempt to continue metering all and that Minister took it. both would be pissing away their careers.

You keep referring to past events, my friend

Currently these have been re-hashed and beaten to death.

My input here is largely concentrating on the future plans and strategies.

Feel free to dwell in the past if that’s your bag, but this poster is firmly clued in on the future.

charlie14 · 16-10-2019 7:09pm

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

You keep referring to past events, my friend

Currently these have been re-hashed and beaten to death.

My input here is largely concentrating on the future plans and strategies.

Feel free to dwell in the past if that’s your bag, but this poster is firmly clued in on the future.

" Those who fail to learn from history are condemned to repeat it" Winston Churchill.

Something that appears very applicable to you Brendan with you just looking for more off the same that failed so utterly only a short few years ago.
In which case perhaps a more apt quote would be that of Albert Einstein :
"The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result"

McMurphy · 16-10-2019 7:24pm

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

There won’t be any frogs jumping out of any pots, I would opine.

Middle Ireland was stiffed once, the one thing that MI don’t like is being stiffed.

Trust me on that one.

Middle Ireland,whilst being generally in favour of the ‘big picture’ are not idiots.

They have the outlook of taking pain for the good of the country, unlike a certain coterie who unless the issues are beneficial to their own situations will oppose vehemently.

This coterie always want costs and work practices and efficiencies -ergo value to the taxpayer, to be buried deep into ‘general taxation’.

This masks the actual real costs of services which is usually the real driver of these protest campaigns.

‘Don’t single us out’ would be the underlying mantra.

Going back to IW my advice from MI to those trying to ignore a ‘Meter one-Meter all’ strategy would be as a staunch Middle Irelander x Dept. Sec. said.

“ They can get up on our backs, but don’t try to piss down our necks”

Anyone who tries to implement water charges on the current basis would do well to frame that quote and remember that expression.

Middle Ireland wasn't stiffed Bren, a few thousand people, mostly pensioners (who pay upfront for anything the govt tell them to) as that's how they operate, and most of them always have, and a few of the "shut up and take my money" type FG blowhards paid or engaged with iw, and all were refunded in full, and in fact many even profited from the clusterfcuk due to the conservation grant which was their's to spend in whatever way they fancied, and wasn't required to be paid back.

The vast, vast majority of Irish people, (including middle irelanders) did sweet fanny adams because the incompetence involved in setting things up, made that the most simple and effective thing to do with the massive white elephant.

It was the only introduced tax in the history of the state, that cost a government more to introduce than what it earned via revenue.

Fg wasted a billion euro in tax payers money on a literal wet dream.

It was a brain fart of epic proportions.

Benedict · 17-10-2019 2:13pm

The following was cut & pasted from IW site TODAY.

"The CRU has approved Irish Water’s proposal to apply a flat unit rate excess use charge of €1.85 per m³ (1,000 litres) and to set the combined cap on charges at €500 for water and wastewater services, i.e. €250 per service."

The penny still hasn't dropped. They are still living in cloud cuckoo land. Has nobody told them yet that nobody is going to pay - and anyone daft enough to pay will eventually have to be refunded?

Has nobody told them they simply can't carve the country in two and have one law for one half and another law for the other half?

That's not how it works!

Brendan Bendar · 17-10-2019 4:56pm

Benedict wrote: »

The following was cut & pasted from IW site TODAY.

"The CRU has approved Irish Water’s proposal to apply a flat unit rate excess use charge of €1.85 per m³ (1,000 litres) and to set the combined cap on charges at €500 for water and wastewater services, i.e. €250 per service."

The penny still hasn't dropped. They are still living in cloud cuckoo land. Has nobody told them yet that nobody is going to pay - and anyone daft enough to pay will eventually have to be refunded?

Has nobody told them they simply can't carve the country in two and have one law for one half and another law for the other half?

That's not how it works!

Middle Ireland was stiffed once...... won’t be stiffed twice.

Meter one....... meter all.

FutureTeashock · 17-10-2019 5:03pm

Brendan Bendar wrote: »

Middle Ireland was stiffed once...... won’t be stiffed twice.

Meter one....... meter all.

Brenda, surely by now you know this country doesn't operate on fairness?

You're going to have to suck it up and pay or break the law.

Those are your two options.

Benedict · 17-10-2019 5:12pm

FutureTeashock wrote: »

Brenda, surely by now you know this country doesn't operate on fairness?

You're going to have to suck it up and pay or break the law.

Those are your two options.

No he won't have to pay. When water charges were introduced before, huge numbers refused to pay and nothing happened to them. In fact the people who did pay got their money back.

charlie14 · 17-10-2019 5:55pm

Benedict wrote: »

The following was cut & pasted from IW site TODAY.

"The CRU has approved Irish Water’s proposal to apply a flat unit rate excess use charge of €1.85 per m³ (1,000 litres) and to set the combined cap on charges at €500 for water and wastewater services, i.e. €250 per service."

The penny still hasn't dropped. They are still living in cloud cuckoo land. Has nobody told them yet that nobody is going to pay - and anyone daft enough to pay will eventually have to be refunded?

Has nobody told them they simply can't carve the country in two and have one law for one half and another law for the other half?

That's not how it works!

There is a case to be made imo that when it comes to the laws governing the state when it comes to the comparison of crime and punishment then that is exactly how it works. White collar crime being an example. The HSE putting families through even more hell before settling on the steps of the High Court knowing full well they hadn`t a leg to stand on in the first place all on the taxpayers expense with not even a reprimand for those within the HSE who decided on this course being another

Anyway, rant over and back to the topic.
Other than by means of leakage I would not have a huge amount of sympathy for households that exceed 213,000 litres of water annually if I believed that was what this was all about. As I have said far as I`m concerned it is nothing other than an attempted backdoor effort to get support from those that are metered in metering everyone else.
If those with meters fall for that, then excess allowance usage will be the least of their worries.

charlie14 · 17-10-2019 6:21pm

FutureTeashock wrote: »

Brenda, surely by now you know this country doesn't operate on fairness?

You're going to have to suck it up and pay or break the law.

Those are your two options.

I would not worry about it.

Anyone will be well dead and buried before the courts get around to any future prosecution of people for breaking the law on paying.

Half the households in the country will be up before that for breaking that law due to none compliance.
.....Ooh yeah. Sorry. My mistake..... there are no prosecutions pending or intended for those hundreds of thousands households.......

Brendan Bendar · 17-10-2019 6:45pm

FutureTeashock wrote: »

Brenda, surely by now you know this country doesn't operate on fairness?

You're going to have to suck it up and pay or break the law.

Those are your two options.

And I keep telling folk which option I will take.

Benedict · 18-10-2019 8:08am

charlie14 wrote: »

There is a case to be made imo that when it comes to the laws governing the state when it comes to the comparison of crime and punishment then that is exactly how it works. White collar crime being an example. The HSE putting families through even more hell before settling on the steps of the High Court knowing full well they hadn`t a leg to stand on in the first place all on the taxpayers expense with not even a reprimand for those within the HSE who decided on this course being another

Anyway, rant over and back to the topic.
Other than by means of leakage I would not have a huge amount of sympathy for households that exceed 213,000 litres of water annually if I believed that was what this was all about. As I have said far as I`m concerned it is nothing other than an attempted backdoor effort to get support from those that are metered in metering everyone else.
If those with meters fall for that, then excess allowance usage will be the least of their worries.

Of course you are entitled to your view which seems to be that if there's a quota imposed on you - but not on the people next door - that's fine. You'll just obey the quota and suck it up.
But the majority of people simply couldn't accept that system because it is fundamentally unfair and you must have sympathy with them too.
So your Australian cousins come to stay with you for a week and you have to warn them not to stay in your power-shower more than so many minutes - and make sure you only wash the car once a month no matter how mucky it is. That's great - until you have to watch the guy next door with his lawn-sprinkler going 12 hours a day in summer and no worries about quotas.
So you're fine with that? Good for you.

But it wouldn't be fine for everyone!

branie2 · 18-10-2019 12:13pm

Will there be charges for dripping taps?

charlie14 · 18-10-2019 1:09pm

Benedict wrote: »

Of course you are entitled to your view which seems to be that if there's a quota imposed on you - but not on the people next door - that's fine. You'll just obey the quota and suck it up.
But the majority of people simply couldn't accept that system because it is fundamentally unfair and you must have sympathy with them too.
So your Australian cousins come to stay with you for a week and you have to warn them not to stay in your power-shower more than so many minutes - and make sure you only wash the car once a month no matter how mucky it is. That's great - until you have to watch the guy next door with his lawn-sprinkler going 12 hours a day in summer and no worries about quotas.
So you're fine with that? Good for you.

But it wouldn't be fine for everyone!

It`s not that I am necessarily fine with this quota and I can see the inequality in the proposed enforcement where apartments by IW`s own admission will never have to worry about it.

What I cannot see is if people are not happy with this quota then why are the apparently so determined to have it imposed on everyone.

Would it not make more sense for them to be campaigning to have this allowance increased or scrapped rather than on a principle of misery loves company ?

Do people not get that by complaining that this quota system is unfair to those that have been metered is only playing into the hands of the powers that be who want to have every household metered.?

If that ever came to pass then we would rapidly be on the road of lowered allowances and increased metered charges and on our way to privatisation

astrofool · 18-10-2019 1:38pm

Without delving back into the "Ulster says no" parade going on in the thread, apartments can be handled as a single entity where it will be up to the management company to manage usage within a block, similar already happens for household waste.

18-10-2019 1:51pm

astrofool wrote: »

Without delving back into the "Ulster says no" parade going on in the thread, apartments can be handled as a single entity where it will be up to the management company to manage usage within a block, similar already happens for household waste.

Shhhhhh. Don’t be upsetting the apple tart.

charlie14 · 18-10-2019 2:25pm

astrofool wrote: »

Without delving back into the "Ulster says no" parade going on in the thread, apartments can be handled as a single entity where it will be up to the management company to manage usage within a block, similar already happens for household waste.

Perhaps you should consider delving back to the reasons well cover in other threads as to why it`s not possible to meter many individual apartments as it is well covered there.

Alternatively you could just ask IW who admitted as far back as 2015 it was not possible, nor had they any intention of attempting to do so.

charlie14 · 18-10-2019 2:32pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Shhhhhh. Don’t be upsetting the apple tart.

Astrofool may or may not have been on other threads where this was well covered, but you were Mary and should know better.
Even your favourite quango, Irish Water, admitted it was not possible.

K.Flyer · 18-10-2019 2:43pm

charlie14 wrote: »

Astrofool may or may not have been on other threads where this was well covered, but you were Mary and should know better.
Even your favourite quango, Irish Water, admitted it was not possible.

The thing is.... it is possible for I.W. to individually meter most apartments. Some apartments would be a little harder than others, and others would be very difficult. But none impossible.
I.W. just don't want to do it (yet).

And it is not up to the management companies to get involved either, other than to facilitate I.W. in their task of fitting meters if they ever get around to it.
If the management companies were forced to install, maintain read and invoice for water, you would see a huge jump in management fees over and above the cost of the water tariff.

18-10-2019 2:53pm

charlie14 wrote: »

Astrofool may or may not have been on other threads where this was well covered, but you were Mary and should know better.
Even your favourite quango, Irish Water, admitted it was not possible.

Nothing is impossible. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

charlie14 · 18-10-2019 3:32pm

K.Flyer wrote: »

The thing is.... it is possible for I.W. to individually meter most apartments. Some apartments would be a little harder than others, and others would be very difficult. But none impossible.
I.W. just don't want to do it (yet).

And it is not up to the management companies to get involved either, other than to facilitate I.W. in their task of fitting meters if they ever get around to it.
If the management companies were forced to install, maintain read and invoice for water, you would see a huge jump in management fees over and above the cost of the water tariff.

From Irish Water metering explained. " Meters will be placed in a meter box, which will be fitted underground on public land "

Again fromIrish Water. "We have done a study on metering apartments. If there`s a separate supply pipe, one pipe into a single apartment, then it is possible to meter".

They then go on to acknowledge that many apartment blocks have multiple supply pipes and it would not be possible other than to re-plum the entire block which would not be feasible.
In their own words regarding apartments " There will always be technical, plumbing reasons why some properties can`t get metered."

charlie14 · 18-10-2019 3:39pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Nothing is impossible. Where there’s a will, there’s a way.

I.W. and FG were more than willing to try metering apartments, but I.W. when asked admitted there was no way.

But you know all this already, so pretty disingenuous posting by you Maryanne imo.

18-10-2019 3:45pm

charlie14 wrote: »

From Irish Water metering explained. " Meters will be placed in a meter box, which will be fitted underground on public land "

Again fromIrish Water. "We have done a study on metering apartments. If there`s a separate supply pipe, one pipe into a single apartment, then it is possible to meter".

They then go on to acknowledge that many apartment blocks have multiple supply pipes and it would not be possible other than to re-plum the entire block which would not be feasible.
In their own words regarding apartments " There will always be technical, plumbing reasons why some properties can`t get metered."

Just because they cannot get metered doesn’t mean that they cannot get charged.

K.Flyer · 18-10-2019 3:49pm

charlie14 wrote: »

From Irish Water metering explained. " Meters will be placed in a meter box, which will be fitted underground on public land "

Again fromIrish Water. "We have done a study on metering apartments. If there`s a separate supply pipe, one pipe into a single apartment, then it is possible to meter".

They then go on to acknowledge that many apartment blocks have multiple supply pipes and it would not be possible other than to re-plum the entire block which would not be feasible.
In their own words regarding apartments " There will always be technical, plumbing reasons why some properties can`t get metered."

Each and every apartment has their own water supply entering the apartment, this is where a meter can be installed. New meters do not need to be physically read, they have transmitters on them, so ordinarily no need to access the apartment.
I could take pictures of numerous apartment water distribution systems where fitting a meter would only take a few minutes and are outside the apartments.
Regardless of all of that, by not metering apartment buildings I.W. have created a discrimination between those who they want to meter and those who they don't. If you are happy to accept that then, imo, more fool you.
How come in europe they are able to meter apartments, new and old. I've seen it done.
I.W. are going after the low hanging fruit and making those with meters pay for those who do not.

18-10-2019 3:53pm

K.Flyer wrote: »

Each and every apartment has their own water supply entering the apartment, this is where a meter can be installed. New meters do not need to be physically read, they have transmitters on them, so ordinarily no need to access the apartment.
I could take pictures of numerous apartment water distribution systems where fitting a meter would only take a few minutes and are outside the apartments.
Regardless of all of that, by not metering apartment buildings I.W. have created a discrimination between those who they want to meter and those who they don't. If you are happy to accept that then, imo, more fool you.
How come in europe they are able to meter apartments, new and old. I've seen it done.
I.W. are going after the low hanging fruit and making those with meters pay for those who do not.

IW will not be discriminating. Those without meters can be identified and charged for overuse same as those metered. In the Uk, customers were offered the choice of meter or flat rate. It works out ok for them. Why not here?

FutureTeashock · 18-10-2019 3:53pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Just because they cannot get metered doesn’t mean that they cannot get charged.

Mary, that ship has sailed in fairness. There are many Middle Ireland Brendans who simply won't pay.

18-10-2019 3:54pm

FutureTeashock wrote: »

Mary, that ship has sailed in fairness. There are many Middle Ireland Brendans who simply won't pay.

Really?

FutureTeashock · 18-10-2019 3:56pm

Deleted User wrote: »

Really?

Really, Mary. REALLY!

18-10-2019 4:16pm

branie2 wrote: »

Will there be charges for dripping taps?

There should be

Water charges for excessive usage

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