Irish Water established to Reform Water Services in Ireland
Irish Water will be established as a wholly owned public water utility and will remain in public ownership.
In just twenty years, it is anticipated that global demand for water will be forty percent higher than it is today so Ireland’s valuable water resources play a vital role in enhancing Ireland’s competitiveness and supporting water-dependent sectors critical to economic recovery.
A government decision has been taken that essential key organisational and funding issues must be addressed to address future demand in order to:
- Develop a sustainable funding model to meet the ongoing operational and capital costs
- Reduce levels of leakage which are a very significant problem.
- Support the development of strategically important national water services projects
- Ensure ongoing compliance with public health and environmental standards;
- Achieve real economies of scale in delivery and operation
- Exploit the full potential for industry standard IT systems for management of water services;
- Introduce independent economic regulation of the sector.
- Ensure that we can use our rich water resources as a strategic asset to the Irish economy.
Currently no up-front charge for the water metering progamme has been proposed and the Regulator will ultimately decide on the funding model.
- Watch this space – for details of standing charge for cost of meter, cost of installation and cost of water used (or metered, which may not be the same thing).
- The argument for rainwater & greywater harvesting and reuse will gain momentum the cost of water becomes more apparent.