Cabinet approves Irish Water plan for next 25 years

The Cabinet has approved an Irish Water plan setting out how it intends to deliver water services for the State in the next 25 years.

The Water Services Strategic Plan sets out how the controversial utility intends to deal with customers, provide clean safe drinking water, reduce the number of leaks in the water system, treat waste water in an effective manner, and support economic growth.

The plan says collating an accurate database of customers “is critical to efficient delivery of services to each customer as well as Irish Water’s revenue generation capability and customer acceptance of water charges”.

Last year, Irish Water apologised to more than 6,300 customers after it sent them letters with data relating to other individuals. It informed the Data Protection Commissioner of the matter on September 4th, in line with the commissioner’s recommended code of practice on data breaches.

The plan says Irish Water customers “need to be satisfied that they are paying a fair amount for a defined service level. It is essential that Irish Water has a clear and transparent tariff structure and that we explain this clearly”.

Payment

It says customers expect to be able to “pay in a way that best suits their needs” and that Irish Water will provide payment methods and frequency of payments that meet with customer demand.

The plan, which involved a period of public consultation, highlights how the utility hopes no customers will be on boil water notices by 2021.

“However, with an underground network of ageing pipes and with a pressurised system including thousands of joints vulnerable to ground conditions and traffic vibrations it will never be possible to reduce water leakage to zero,” it says.

“Instead, our intention is to apply a best practice asset management approach in an economic and efficient manner in order to achieve the optimum water savings to achieve a sustainable and economic level of leakage.”

The metering of domestic and commercial properties will aid the detection of leaks within the customer’s property and alert customers to the wastage of water on their property with the potential to reduce their water bills, it says.