What they wont tell you about your water charges

Niall Keane

Water Charges sure we need them, we're just so lucky in Ireland, but we should really conserve?
Also let’s face it the Eskimos get a raw deal, but look at how much energy their snow suits conserve, if everyone wore snowsuits in Ireland we could halve our food bills, and so leave more land fallow for indigenous species?

Please forgive that attempt at humour, but seriously take Germany, you are charged for supply of drinking water and untreated water and for the drainage.
This has had the effect the Greens want, rain collectors, drainage sumps onsite etc...
Unforeseen results are the following:
Because less water is used to flush etc. the sewers etc. are suffering from blockages. (Remember engineering calculations were made to ensure the slope that they lie at worked for the level of discharge and the water rates of such discharge)
But another unforeseen result is this the concrete pipes are cracking, why? Well the high acidic content of urine now less diluted has an adverse effect on the concrete.

So, bottom line, when the water taxes kick in, expect further emergency taxes to be brought in and massive traffic disruption as our cities sewers are replaced.

Lately it’s hard to see Green policies being other than knee jerk reactions, from what I see, policies and controlling taxes are put in place without verifying the theories they are based on (Climate Change) and without fully exploring the ramifications of such hasty interventions, all because they pull our heart strings and tell us that "there is no time to debate this". I guess I'm like most people out there who once admired the greens as a sincere face in politics, but am starting to feel that we've elected a party of Neil's from the Young Ones.

BTW as there were contributions from developers conditioned in Planning Grants that were to address services such as water and drainage, we have in fact already paid for these services, (passed on to buyer) do we get a refund from the council now that ongoing taxes are proposed?

The road to hell and good intentions?

cavedave

Interesting point. Do you have a reference to the problems in Germany? I had not thought how a system designed like this would suffer from conservation.

From yesterdays times

Water charges 'to raise €1 billion'

Mr Gormley said that it costs about €1billion per annum to treat water for public consumption and that the Government would seek to recoup the cost of this through metering. He also called the abolition of water charges by previous governments as "nonsensical and spineless."

There are about 1.9 million houses here. Counting empty houses and holiday houses etc say you have 1.5 million using water at a time. Let us guess that .5 million get out of paying because they are to poor. Or they pay but a water allowance is given to them to help them afford to pay. So 1 million houses will have to pay 1 billion annually or about 1000 euro per house.
Sounds like a lot of money. Of course we are paying for this water at the moment anyway somewhere along the line and if we pay per use we might be able to reduce the 1 billion cost. though that could be me being naive.

amacachi

cavedave wrote: »

Interesting point. Do you have a reference to the problems in Germany? I had not thought how a system designed like this would suffer from conservation.

From yesterdays times



There are about 1.9 million houses here. Counting empty houses and holiday houses etc say you have 1.5 million using water at a time. Let us guess that .5 million get out of paying because they are to poor. Or they pay but a water allowance is given to them to help them afford to pay. So 1 million houses will have to pay 1 billion annually or about 1000 euro per house.
Sounds like a lot of money. Of course we are paying for this water at the moment anyway somewhere along the line and if we pay per use we might be able to reduce the 1 billion cost. though that could be me being naive.

Yeah I do find the maths somewhat odd, the Irish Times mentioned 1.1 million households being charged, so ~900 per year. I'd be very surprised if the government tried at that rate.

ei.sdraob

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah I do find the maths somewhat odd, the Irish Times mentioned 1.1 million households being charged, so ~900 per year. I'd be very surprised if the government tried at that rate.

would people who own the 300,000 empties have to pay the water charge? or the upcoming property tax?

once houses become expensive to run, they will get demolished as happens in US

Niall Keane

Yeah I do find the maths somewhat odd, the Irish Times mentioned 1.1 million households being charged, so ~900 per year. I'd be very surprised if the government tried at that rate.

Year 1: average house pays for water €150

Pipes will be upgraded; problems with "drinking" water reservoirs capacities will be pontificated about. Someone will have the bright idea to install a second system to provide new cheaper and greener untreated rainwater directly without treatment for flushing, washing etc.

Year 4-5 two tier pricing system - average house:
Drinking Water: €150
Surface Water: €350

Wait a year or maybe in prior to the two tier system, metered drainage rates

Average House: €350

And people will accept it as alternatives will exist to those who can afford to upgrade their homes with rain-water collectors and attenuation ponds etc.

Of course this will provide a windfall of tax from a green construction sector. It will also long term allow for the reduction of public service staff in the water divisions.

And Ireland will become a politician’s heaven, a true banana republic where the people are taxed into poverty and provided with nothing in return.

The_Honeybadger

amacachi wrote: »

Yeah I do find the maths somewhat odd, the Irish Times mentioned 1.1 million households being charged, so ~900 per year. I'd be very surprised if the government tried at that rate.

I assume he means altogether, ie businesses who are already paying rates will be included in the 1bn.

gent9662

How will they meter a house that has two water supplies coming in from the mains? I have a water tank in my shed which is fed separately from the supply coming into the house, how will they measure this?

AlekSmart

Because less water is used to flush etc. the sewers etc. are suffering from blockages. (Remember engineering calculations were made to ensure the slope that they lie at worked for the level of discharge and the water rates of such discharge)
But another unforeseen result is this the concrete pipes are cracking, why? Well the high acidic content of urine now less diluted has an adverse effect on the concrete.

Ah NiallKeane....c`mon now...this is IRELAND.....the home of knowledge based economics.
These Germans know all about work and stuff,but we IRISH have the Knowledge,thats what makes US different and immune to any negativity such as your post contains.

We have Administrators of such stupendous intelligence that you can rest assured that ALL the necessary calculations re the acidic content of urine has already been factored in,as in,that piss has been taken long ago in preparation for just this moment.

Even the dimmest of us,and all those dumb foreign workers too can smell the coffee aroma wafting from John Gormley`s desk on this one.

The various Government Departments have all had their high level Policy Group meetings.
The necessary "Spin" has been formulated and a little bit of the "Hardship" principle is already being rolled out across the country,particularly in the urban areas.

Softening Up it`s known as and in this case,yet again,it is being directed at the steadily declining numbers of the employed middle-classes (?) who will eventually be working simply to fill the bathtubs of everybody else whilst they themselves use recycled diswasher outflow.

Let us guess that .5 million get out of paying because they are to poor.

Cavedave`s numbers tell the tale,even if perhaps a rough calculation.

However the real problem lies in our native definition of poverty which readily accepts Major Drug Importers and €100,000 Mercedes Benz owning persons of no fixed abode as being poor whilst denying benefits to the spouses of manual workers earning 1/100th of that cars value monthly.

Of course John Gormley is fully confident,along with his cabinet colleagues,of their ability to scam the native Irish,cos essentially thats what we prefer as opposed to being treated as individuals who can make rational decisions.

The Irish version of Water Charges will,like most of the nationally enacted leglislation be firmly based on the principles of crookery and theivery so well ensconced in Fianna Fail core-values and supported wholeheartedly for decades by the Natives.

At this stage the Irish Political "System" such as it is has collapsed under the weight of it`s own decay and those that remain are perhaps the most rotten of the lot.

The recent emergence of the State Secrecy culture covering stuff that EVERYBODY else needs to know is but the final underlining of the reality.

Water Charges...bring them on !!!! :mad:

Idbatterim

I wonder if introduced, how many people would start using a grey water system?

Heroditas

David Norris came out with a great line on the radio yesterday evening:

"It's easy for me to be a socialist because I can afford to be one"

The same thing can be said of being a "Green"

View

ei.sdraob wrote: »

would people who own the 300,000 empties have to pay the water charge? or the upcoming property tax?

That depends. Currently there is a Residential Property Tax on vacant "Non-primary" residences (if I remember the phrase correctly).

The way this is defined meant should you - an ordinary householder - need to work abroad to make ends meet at the moment, then your residence is vacant and you are liable for the property tax.

On the other hand, property developers with large amounts of unsold vacant properties on their books are specifically exempted in the legislation from having to pay this tax.

From what I have heard of it, the proposal is the water charge would consist of a standing charge and a (variable) quantity based charge.

Based on the property tax example, I'd imagine that the ordinary householder I cite above would be liable for the standing charge, the property developer exempt from it.

All perfectly legal and "fair" of course...

View

Well, I'd propose the Government do something like this:-

Hold a special supplementary budget. In this, they'd introduce the water charge fee. They'd also cut income taxes by an equivalent amount. The net effect of this would be revenue/cost neutral for the Government/the average person. After this, few could complain they were hard done by.

After that, in December, hold the normal budget and raise taxes and/or cut services etc. so that the current budget deficit is reduced once more. Since, this would be a seperate budget (from the water charge one), no one could complain about any of this, since this budget would have nothing to do with the special supplementary budget.

Everybody happy now?

dan_d

I'd be much happier if I didn't face the prospect of having to pay for something that falls out the of the sky onto my head at least once a week, and usually more!!!

crossmolinalad

Have no mains have a well smart guy who puts a meter in that

crossmolinalad

dclane wrote: »

How will they meter a house that has two water supplies coming in from the mains? I have a water tank in my shed which is fed separately from the supply coming into the house, how will they measure this?

never talk about that if they are there to give u a meter u know nothing about that

View

dan_d wrote: »

I'd be much happier if I didn't face the prospect of having to pay for something that falls out the of the sky onto my head at least once a week, and usually more!!!

Well, they are not actually proposing to charge for rain - yet. Mind you, now that you mention it, they could.

Niall Keane

Well, they are not actually proposing to charge for rain - yet. Mind you, now that you mention it, they could.

This is done in Germany and Ireland will of course follow suit. The area of your site is multiplied by a figure to calculate the amount of rainfall per year and this volume is assumed to be taken away by the local authorities drains so you are charged accordingly. :eek:

old boy

a relative aged 90 an o.a.p. is living in the tipp st riding co. council area, he lives alone, his water bill is 135 euro, less a 50 euro discount for living alone, so people water rates are already being collected in parts of this country.

mossfort

the point that is being missed that thousands of people who are connected to group water schemes throughout the country have being paying water charges for the last 30 years.
my yearly charge was around 80 euros for the house but the co council are now taking over the scheme and the charge is rising to 185 for the house meter plus a fixed charge per cubic meter of water used.
typical of county councils they have to charge so much for basic services.

Red_Marauder

mossfort wrote: »

the point that is being missed that thousands of people who are connected to group water schemes throughout the country have being paying water charges for the last 30 years.
my yearly charge was around 80 euros for the house but the co council are now taking over the scheme and the charge is rising to 185 for the house meter plus a fixed charge per cubic meter of water used.
typical of county councils they have to charge so much for basic services.

Isn't that the result of choosing to live in a rural location?

I grew up on a farm where (back in the day) we had to drill our own well and install our own pumping system for both farming and domestic use. It's still the same, we're responsible for producing our own water. It's part of choosing not to live in an urban area as far as I can see.

cavedave

Back to the back of the envelope

TE]The Government intends to raise as much as €1 billion per annum from water metering charges when they are introduced, Minister for Environment John Gormley said this morning.[/QUOTE]

So this is new money from domestic charges not total revenue as their water is already metered so they have no charge to be introduced.

"1.1 million homes" so roughly 900 euro per home charged based on the water meter.
So just to make surte i have this right

Mr Gormley said that it costs about €1billion per annum to treat water for public consumption and that the Government would seek to recoup the cost of this through metering

Public, not business, will pay 1 billion based on their water usage.

"We've taken the decision now to introduce water metering in this country which will be done on the basis of an allocation of water to each household and you pay above that," said Mr Gormley.

So what is the minimum they could allocate? In South Africa "the basic minimum should be increased to 50 litres per person per day". Other sources site this 50 liter figure. The Belgiums seem to give about 40 liters per day

So say we get 50 liters a day allocated to us. How much do we actually use?
In the UK metered people* use about 130 liters a day and unmetered about 150 liters. Source here.

So say were the same here and we end up using 80 liters a day on top of our allocated 50 liters. For this we would pay 900 euro between the 3.1 people in each of our houses.
So roughly 300 euro each.
So thats 80 liters*365 days=~30000 liters (29200 actually)
or a cent a liter. So a bath will cost you 80 cents worth of water and spending a penny 4.5 cent.

How does the price of 1 cent a liter compare with the UK?

In England and Wales our drinking water costs around 1p for 10 litres

So why are we paying a cent for a liter (and we are paying nearly that much for it now, just not directly) and the UK pays 1p per 10 liters?

*actualy the figures given are for houseswith an average of over 2 people in each so the rest of the sum is completely whacky.

ei.sdraob

cavedave wrote: »

So why are we paying a cent for a liter (and we are paying nearly that much for it now, just not directly) and the UK pays 1p per 10 liters?

the difference is were irish

cavedave

Something must be wrong with my sums. I guess is that they actually mean they will take in 1 billion from all water charges not just from domestic water charges.

Still two figures seem to be worth remembering. The uk pays 1p per 10 liters. You should get at least 40 liters a day allowance.

unit 1

Just a point. We waste water because it's free and we don't pay for it, right.
Does this mean we are super duper efficient users of electricity as we have always paid for it.
If the above is true then why are we continually asked to energy efficient, as we should be already.

cavedave

unit 1 Just a point. We waste water because it's free and we don't pay for it, right.

The evidence from the UK says that a household wastes about 20 liters or under 15% when metered compared to not being metered. Of course that depends on the price of the water.

But water has a very low price elasticity of demand about 0.17 according to here. Electricity seems to have a much higher elasticity. So it electricity usage seems to change much more in response to price that water does.

View

cavedave wrote: »

So why are we paying a cent for a liter (and we are paying nearly that much for it now, just not directly) and the UK pays 1p per 10 liters?

We are not part of the UK so the pricing structure there isn't hugely relevant to us. Our Government could decide to have a higher or lower unit price for water and/or a higher or lower free water allowance etc. etc.

At this stage, I'd say all prices talked about are just speculation and will remain so for a long time to come.

As can be seen, from the graph below, there is a large variation in prices for water within the EU: