Water and property charges due

Consumers are facing two separate taxes for water and property, the Government acknowledged this afternoon.

Ireland is committed to introducing property tax as well as water charges for domestic users under the EU-IMF deal a spokeswoman for Minister for Environment Phil Hogan confirmed.

In the case of property tax the EU-IMF bailout obliges Ireland to introduce a property tax by 2012 and increase it in 2013.

However the Government is not sufficiently advanced with proposals for a site valuation for each home, an interim household charge is to be put in place.

Figures for how much this will cost home owners are not available because the Government spending review has not yet revealed how much the Government is likely to need to support local authority services such as fire brigades, street cleaning and libraries.

The introduction of water charges were also agreed as part of the EU-IMF bailout. The bailout obliges Ireland to introduce charges for domestic water by 2013. Meters will begin to be introduced in households by early 2012.

The spokeswoman confirmed this afternoon that contrary to earlier expectations that one charge would incorporate or replace the other "there will be two charges from 2013".

However she said in relation to water charges there would be a "generous allowance" above which users would have to pay.