Sir, – I have just received a letter from the water conservation grant section of the Social Welfare Services Office. In order to claim the €100 water conservation grant, I am requested to provide a taxpayer identification number, a water point reference number, an Irish Water account number or registration number, a PPS number and bank account details.
I am most reluctant to provide all this personal information. As a person who has paid for water charges, might I suggest that Irish Water credit the €100 against my next bill, thus avoiding all this unnecessary communication of this data, and do the same for all those other people who have paid their bill? – Yours, etc,
EAMONN McQUADE,
Castleconnell,
Co Limerick.
Sir, – Two of your recent reports refer to speculation that the Government plans to ensure that, eventually, only households that have paid their water charges will be eligible to receive the €100 water conservation grant ("Coalition to link €100 water grant with bill payment", Front Page, August 20th; "Water charge structure must change, senior Government figures believe", August 21st).
Currently, registration with Irish Water, as opposed to actual payment of water charges is all that is required to secure the grant of €100.
Your reports state that “there is no definite timeframe” within which the revised plan linking payment of the grant to payment of water charges will apply. In the meantime, the €100 grant in respect of 2015 will issue to those who have registered with Irish Water but not necessarily paid their bills.
I cannot pretend that I fully understand the intentions of the Government spin-doctors whose non-attributable briefings would have formed the basis for your reports.
The following is, however, a modest attempt on my part to grasp what the Coalition parties might wish to achieve. In the run-up to the next election, the Government is only too aware that those of us who have been foolish enough to pay our water charges might feel a bit miffed at the thought that those who have refused to pay will still receive the water conservation grant.
However, we compliant idiots can rest assured that, at some unspecified point in the future, payment of the €100 grant will be linked to actual payment of water charges.
As for those who steadfastly refuse to pay their water bills, they can relax in the knowledge that they will still receive the conservation grant payable in respect of 2015.
In fact, the non-compliant could continue to receive the €100 grant in the following years if, perish the thought, the Government lacked the courage to implement the plan confining payment of the grant to those who had actually paid their water charges.
A simple question, though, causes me to doubt the adequacy of my own explanation. Following the breathtaking incompetence displayed in the establishment of Irish Water, could the Government really be so stupid as to believe that the approach outlined in the previous paragraph will save it from the wrath of voters, compliant or non-compliant, on the issue of water charges at the next general election? – Yours, etc,
PAUL GULLY,
Clontarf, Dublin 3.
A chara, – In view of the proposed water charges protest this Saturday, in the interest of balanced coverage is there any chance of positive exposure of the point of view of the many hundreds of thousands of civic-minded citizens who have willingly paid their bills to date?
There are a significant number of parties who genuinely have difficulties in paying the charges, but these have been assured that their cases will be met with consideration.
However there is an even more extensive cohort of individuals who are well capable of paying but are prepared to scrounge off the almost 50 percent of compliant customers, plus the additional members throughout the country of independent water schemes who are expected to carry these protesters who refuse to pay the very moderate charges to provide a reasonable service.
Can we expect that The Irish Times and the media in general will give some voice to the very substantial civic-minded silent majority in the overall coverage and provide a more balanced picture of the national attitude towards compliance? – Is mise,
LIAM MORRISON,
Ballsbridge,Dublin 4.