Water refund donations to homeless charities top €500,000

Donations of Irish Water refunds to homeless charities has surpassed the €500,000 mark.

The Refund Project was set up on behalf of the Simon Community, the Peter McVerry Trust and Focus Ireland. Refunds for those who paid their water charges have been arriving at households since last month.

Kieran Mulvey, chairman of the Refund Project oversight group, said it was very “clear from the public response to date that people really want to do something meaningful to help the homeless this Christmas”.

“This is a national crisis in every sense of the word. Every donation small or large will greatly assist the advancement of homeless projects being developed by the three charities,” he said.

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“Each donation is also an expression of support and solidarity for those thousands of disadvantaged people who don’t have a place to call home this Christmas.”

Mr Mulvey said the Refund Project has received over €540,000 since the campaign launch on December 1st and the pace of donations “has upped significantly in recent days”.

“We received one third of the amount since the end of last week so we believe the coming days will be very important for our campaign,” he added.

“We also understand about only one third of the water refunds have been lodged into people’s accounts so far, so while most of the cheques have arrived, many people have yet to get to the bank.”

Irish Water said almost 90 per cent of refunds will be issued by the end of the year. Cheques are being issued to the account holder to their last known address. Customers can check how much they will receive and when they will receive their refund by logging on to the Irish Water checker at water.ie/refunds.

Donations to the Refund Project can be made online at refundproject.ie.