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Council explains stance on uncollected water charges

Thursday, 10 June 2010

DÚN Laoghaire Rathdown County Council has defended its position regarding the millions of euro worth of outstanding water charges owed by local businesses. It has emerged that in 2008 the council only collected e3.46 million (31 per cent) of the e11.1 million it was owed. The local authority was one of 17 county councils across the country that failed to collect over 50 per cent of outstanding water charges that year. In comparison, Dublin City Council collected 49 per cent and South Dublin County Council collected 51 per cent of the charges it was owed in 2008. The figures were compiled by a daily newspaper, which reported that examinations of council finances by the Local Government Auditor found that despite repeated warnings officials were not chasing businesses through the courts for unpaid bills. The difficulty in forcing businesses to pay their bills has cast major doubt over Environment Minister John Gormley's planned roll-out of water charges for domestic households from 2012. The report found that in terms of the percentage of overall water charges owed, Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council's collection rate in 2008 of 31 per cent meant that it had the fifth highest proportion of uncollected water charges in the country that year. At a recent Dun Laoghaire area committee meeting Cllr Richard Humphreys (Lab) proposed that action be taken to seriously step up the pressure on defaulters, by instituting a scheme whereby non-payers would be publicly named and shamed. “Unfortunately my motion was opposed and as a result was defeated by one vote,” Cllr Humphreys said. “I am calling on the manager to acknowledge that there has been a real systems failure in terms of the collection of commercial water charges, and that effective action is now required.” A spokeswoman for the council said: “The head of finance has strongly defended the enforcement actions of the council over the last year, which have resulted in the disconnection of water supplies to a number of customers in arrears. “The name and shame scheme proposed by Cllr Humphreys was advised against due to concerns regarding due legal process as well as a lack of resources to apply such a scheme in a fair and equitable manner.” The Government plans to introduce water charges to all 1.1 million households in the State by 2012. Homes will get a basic allocation for free and pay for any water used on top of that. The level of charges has yet to be decided, but Minister Gormley has said it will cost less than e400 a year. However, Deputy Aengus O'Snodaigh (SF) called on the minister to abandon his plans to introduce domestic water charges following the failure of councils to collect outstanding commercial usage charges. “It has been revealed that councils throughout the State are failing to collect charges for water from the majority of businesses,” he said. A spokesman for the Department of the Environment said the minister would not comment until a memo on water charges is brought before the Government.