Q&A: What does that Irish Water bill actually mean?

Irish Water is back in the news? It never went away. But you can expect it to make a lot of headlines this week because, after all the talk and all the protests and all the controversy, it is issuing its first demands for money.

That won't be popular No, it won't and it will be less popular when the mistakes start to be reported. It has already admitted it is likely to make a lot of mistakes as it issues more than 1.7 million bills between now and the middle of June.

What kind of mistakes? Some people will have been billed too much and some people wrongly billed or billed twice. And some will be billed for undrinkable water. The company has anticipated all this and has trained up 750 people to work at its call centre to handle complaints as fast and as efficiently as it can.

What will the bill look like? There are two sides to it. The front will detail how much you owe and it looks pretty much like any other utility. It will also tell you if you are registered with the company and if you are metered. The reverse side will outline how much water you actually used, if you are metered.

How much does it want? A cap on charges announced by Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly last year means the most any household will be billed for the three months between January and the end of March will be €65 at least until the end of 2018.

How are the charges to be applied? A single occupant household will have to pay a maximum of €40 this quarter while a household made up of two or more adults will have to pay no more than €65. If a household uses less than the "free" allocation, they might have to pay less.

How much does the water cost? Officially, the cost of water per 1,000 litres will be €3.70. But when allowances – notably the 21,000 litre allowance for each child living in the home – and the caps are included for a family of four using an average supply of water, it costs €0.89 for every 1,000 litres.

Can the cap be beaten? Irish Water says 30 per cent of people who have had meters installed are using less than €65 of water each quarter, while another 20 per cent are close to beating it. A breakdown of your usage will be on your bill if your meter was installed last year.

What about the Water Conservation Grant? The grant is the carrot the Government is using to get people to sign up with the utility. It is worth €100 and is available if you register with Irish Water before June 30th. If a household does not register, it will be hit with the full bill of €260, regardless of how many adults live in the home. A single person who does not register will be liable for a charge of €260, as opposed to €60. When will people have to pay their bill? Typically, customers are being given 14 days to settle up.

And if I don't pay? The company has said there will be at least four billing cycles – or more than a year – before it starts pursuing non-payers. How much will the utility take in this quarter? Who knows. There is still a lot of opposition to the charge but it says it expects to raise €70 million from the first billing quarter and that it would take in €271 million this year.