Barry Cowen
Question:90. Deputy Barry Cowen asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the plans for non-domestic water charges rates; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [40953/14]
View answerTuesday, 2 December 2014
Questions (90)
Written answers
The Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013 provides for the transfer of responsibility for the delivery of water services from the local authorities to Irish Water and, with effect from 1 January 2014, Irish Water is responsible for the provision of public water services, including responsibility for the charging of non-domestic customers. The Act provides that Irish Water can collect charges from its customers in receipt of water services provided by it. The Act also provides that responsibility for the independent economic regulation of the water sector is assigned to the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) and the CER has been given statutory responsibility for protecting the interests of customers. The local authority water tariffs that applied prior to 1 January 2014 still apply to non-domestic customers. The Commission for Energy Regulation has indicated that it will be reviewing all aspects of non-domestic water tariffs under a series of public consultations, so that an enduring tariff framework can be established for non-domestic charges. The CER will publish the time-line for this process before the end of 2014.
The local authorities, acting as agents of Irish Water have continued billing, collections and billing/metering query functions in relation to non-domestic customers. Non-domestic customer data is scheduled to migrate from local authorities to Irish Water during 2015.