This article is from page 8 of the 2013-06-11 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 8 JPG
CLARE residents could face an annual charge of up to € 145 to fund the cost of water meters – even though the meters themselves are likely to cost a fraction of that amount.
Clare County Council has been directed to survey all houses in Clare to determine the number of type of water connections that exist in the county.
Councillors at last night’s meeting of Clare County Council raised a number of questions about the roll out of water metering by the newly formed Irish Water – specifically the cost of water meters and the possibility that houses with existing water meter could be forced to pay for these functioning meters to be replaced by Irish Water.
“I think that the public should be informed that there will be an ongoing charge, which could amount to as much as € 145 per annum, for this meter that will cost a couple of euro,” said Cllr Gerry Flynn (IND).
“We may no longer be responsible for water but I think the least that we can do as a local authority is to ask if the department [of the environment] a number of questions- like will there be an allowance, will there be a standard charge for the metres, will there be bulk metering for large apartment complexes – who will have the responsibility for collecting water chages. I think that it is our responsibility to ask these questions of the department – whether we will have a role in this or not.”
Cllr Patricia McCarthy (IND) said that there is a lot of pubic confusion about the roll out of water metering.
“A lot of people had to replace water meters a few years ago during the big freeze – it seems, from looking to this information, that these might have to pay for new meters now,” she said.
“It seems like the more we heard about this, the more confusion that there seems to be. The sooner that the department brings some clarity to this the better. Every answer seems to bring another questions and there is a lot of confusion out there.”
Council spokesperson Carmel Greene commented that the cost of metering was a matter for Irish Water and Clare County Council had no role to play. She also said that, as far as she was aware, functioning meters would not have to be replaced by home owners. Tue11June13