Water charges - to repay or not to repay?

A number of TDs, including some from Fine Gael, have urged the Government to refund water charges to people who paid.
The calls came after the report of the expert commission on water services was published last week. It recommended that an allowance for domestic water use should be calculated on the basis of the number of people living in the home and that the “vast majority” of people will no longer have to pay water charges.
The commission also said that a group enshrining Irish Water in public ownership should be considered.
On the question of what should happen with the bills issued to date - whether those who paid should be reimbursed, or those who hadn’t paid should be chased up - Sinn Féin’s Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin was quick to nail his colours to the mast.
“I would support the reimbursement of those who have paid their water charge demands and believe that access to good quality water is not only a natural right, it is a national right of all regardless of where they live. In that context rural dweller domestic customers of Group Water Schemes are equally entitled to a free supply,” he told The Anglo-Celt.
Deputy Ó Caoláin also welcomed the recommendation in the report that constitutional protection of the public ownership of water be put in place and that the best way to pay for domestic water usage is through general taxation, and dismissed the Commission’s proposal for a tariff on 'excessive’ usage as “unworkable”.
Minister for Rural Affairs Heather Humphreys said that the Expert Commission Report on Water Services has now been passed to the Oireachtas Committee. “I believe that any recommendation the committee brings forward should not disadvantage those people who obeyed the law and paid their water charges,” she said. “Consideration must also be given to the substantial costs faced by many people in rural Ireland who are either on Group Water Schemes or have their own private wells. It has been forgotten by some members of the opposition that these people have always paid for water,” said the local Minister.

Disaster
Fianna Fáil’s Brendan Smith, meanwhile, has said that the establishment of Irish Water has been a “disaster from day one” and the whole thing has been “a huge waste of taxpayers’ money”.
Deputy Smith said that “people on low incomes should not be burdened with a very heavy water charges demand”, adding: “Whatever proposals emerge from the work of the Oireachtas Committee that has been established to deal with this matter must ensure that rural households are not disadvantaged because they have their own wells or are being supplied by Group Water Schemes,” said Deputy Smith.
His party colleague, Niamh Smyth (FF), said that much of the report reflects the Fianna Fáil submission to the Commission and the party’s general manifesto position in ending water charges and funding water services through general taxation.
“Fianna Fáil has four TDs and one Senator on this Committee and I will work with my colleagues to address critical issues like ensuring fairness for rural dwellers and homes on the public mains supply,” she said.