***ALL THINGS IRISH WATER/WATER CHARGE RELATED POST HERE***

flutered

seamus wrote: »

In a civil case where you're being sued for damages, the outcome of the case only weighs on the balance of probabilities.

If the meter outside your house is intentionally damaged, it's most probable that you did it, because who else would?

Therefore they'd have a good chance to win a civil case against you.

and here was i thinking that one had to be proven guilty, not most probably proven guilty, before a court could convict.

seamus

Losing a civil case does not result in a conviction. You can only be convicted in a criminal case, which requires proof beyond a reasonable doubt.

Banjo String

What would happen in a scenario, if a family, not necessarily opposed to Irish Water charges, and fully paid bills get their meters tampered with/damaged?

By Whom you might ask. Kids. Neighbours with a grudge. Any of the various anti water charges groups?

Anyone really with access to the meter.

Chips Lovell

Better scrap the whole thing so.

geeksauce

Banjo String wrote: »

Really?


Even though it's located on the public pathways and roads of the country that anyone can access?

It's not the same as your gas meter or ESB meter which is usually in or on private property.

I believe I posted a link showing how someone claimed they didn't tamper with their ESB Meter and claimed someone else must have done and the judge ignored this ridiculous claim and they were fined by the court for tampering with the meter. I have no doubt that this would be the same for an IW Meter, but as I said previously you go ahead knock your socks off and tamper with the meter and use the old reliable excuse of 'sure I didn't do it' see how far you get.

Do you know who does be on your road all day, or what they do be doing? Because I don't.

Sigh

Bob24

Yawns wrote: »

I'm renting, I don't have the authority and can't get in touch with my LL. It's not covered under my lease. If IW don't have my name, will this not just end up like the whole TV Licence thing?

It won't. There is legislation around this and if no tenant is registered as an account holder for a property, the landlord is automatically and always liable for the charges (unless of course they ask for the property to be cut-off the water network).

Maybe you can't get in touch with your landlord - but when they start receiving your bills and being liable for them I am fairly confident they will manage to get in touch with you ;-)

Yawns

At least they have some way to do it. Do you have a link to this legislation? How come they can't do this for the TV Licence?

practice

A quote from the water act 2013

"In this regard, the Act provides BGÉ and Irish Water/Uisce Éireann with the necessary powers to obtain information from households in receipt of water services and other third parties for the purpose of creating a customer database."

Does anyone know what information I am legally obliged to give.
If I have a meter and the charge is based on usage does it mater if 1 or 10 people live in a house.
I imagine they will tell me the household allowance will be stopped if I do not register,
can they do this.

K-9

geeksauce wrote: »

Of course you don't as that would be completely ridiculous there would be another meter at your new house, plus if you attempted to take it with you

1. you would be a complete clown to even think that it would be a plausible thing to do, even suggesting that here seems a bit ridiculous tbh and makes me wonder what exactly you were thinking when you came up with that nonsense.

2. Taking it with you or attempting to take it with you would most likely result in a serious injury due to you know the electricity!!

3. You would be prosecuted for tampering with it

Exaggerated to make the point.

As another poster pointed out, the meter is the property of ESB Networks.

Ogham

practice wrote: »

A quote from the water act 2013

"In this regard, the Act provides BGÉ and Irish Water/Uisce Éireann with the necessary powers to obtain information from households in receipt of water services and other third parties for the purpose of creating a customer database."

Does anyone know what information I am legally obliged to give.
If I have a meter and the charge is based on usage does it mater if 1 or 10 people live in a house.
I imagine they will tell me the household allowance will be stopped if I do not register,
can they do this.

You will get no free allowance if you don't fill in the form. The main reason for the PPS number is to stop people claiming they live in more than 1 house and getting a free allowance for a holiday home for example. (Holiday homes will have a minimum charge of €160 a year for water+sewage ... http://www.moneyguideireland.com/figures-for-water-charges-released.html)

seamus

Banjo String wrote: »

What would happen in a scenario, if a family, not necessarily opposed to Irish Water charges, and fully paid bills get their meters tampered with/damaged?

By Whom you might ask. Kids. Neighbours with a grudge. Any of the various anti water charges groups?

Come up with a reasonable explanation and you'd be fine. Same as anything else.

The judge sees you're fully paid up on your bills, you don't make constant complaints or calls to Irish water, why would you damage your meter?

If you had a neighbour with a grudge, you could prove. If kids or hate groups were going around tampering with meters, then yours wouldn't be the only one damaged.

All pretty reasonable things, like.

If you had a neighbour who threatened to key your car and the next day you found the word "cvnt" scratched into your car, you'd probably win a civil case against them. On the other hand, if you picked a neighbour at random and blamed them, you'll lose.
Balance of probabilities.

Bob24

Yawns wrote: »

At least they have some way to do it. Do you have a link to this legislation? How come they can't do this for the TV Licence?

I couldn't find the actual legislation (though I am still convinced there is one), but here it is stated on the CER's website: http://www.cer.ie/customer-care/water/faqs

"Q: I own a property, which I rent out to tenants. Who pays the water charge on my property?

The occupier or tenant of a property should pay the water charges applicable to that property. However, where an occupier cannot be identified, then liability for the charges defaults to the owner who will ultimately be responsible for the payment of those charges.

Therefore it is important for owners and landlords to ensure that all water charges are paid."

One difference with the TV licence is that Irish Water is coming after the local property tax - and the government finally has a database of who owns which property in the country (crazily enough i don't think they know for sure before the LPT introduction). Legislation has also been passed for Revenue to transfer a copy of that database to Irish Water, who therefore knows of every residentional property in the country as well as their owner. Anpost couldn't apply the same rule defaulting to the landlord as they don't have that information and eir is currently no legal basis for them to obtain it.

Pumpkinseeds

There is no reason for Irish Water to request PPS numbers. It's just another utility bill. I don't want to pay for water but I will, there's no point in fighting it, it's done. I do however, object to and resent the idea of providing them with my PPS number, that's taking things a step too far.

seamus

Pumpkinseeds wrote: »

There is no reason for Irish Water to request PPS numbers. It's just another utility bill. I don't want to pay for water but I will, there's no point in fighting it, it's done. I do however, object to and resent the idea of providing them with my PPS number, that's taking things a step too far.

I'm pretty sure that you will have the option to not supply your PPSN, in which case you'll be provided with the water allowance for a single individual living on their own. Or more likely, you'll be given no allowance at all, as they assume no PPSN == no residents.

In reality they require the PPSN in order to verify that you have X number of people living in your property and avoid the scams where people tell the social that their partner doesn't live there and tell Irish water that all 3 of their partners live there.

It's to save the customer money in the long run.

Bob24

seamus wrote: »

I'm pretty sure that you will have the option to not supply your PPSN, in which case you'll be provided with the water allowance for a single individual living on their own. Or more likely, you'll be given no allowance at all, as they assume no PPSN == no residents.

In reality they require the PPSN in order to verify that you have X number of people living in your property and avoid the scams where people tell the social that their partner doesn't live there and tell Irish water that all 3 of their partners live there.

It's to save the customer money in the long run.

Yes I definitely thing there is a good reason behind asking for PPSNs.

Now having said that, I would also share the concern of people who don't want to give this type of information to a utility company. My PPSN associated to my name and address is not something I am very happy to give to anyone except a government agency - and while it is own by the government Irish Water is a private company which could one day be privitised. In my view if the government wanted to have these allowances they should have handled them themselves through the department of social protection rather than asking IW to maintain that database.

hawthorn

I'm just presuming that as the meters are installed outside the house and underground, that we have no way of "reading" our own meter, at least with electricity we can actually check it.

What if we dispute the amount we use against the amount billed? Im sure these things can make mistakes.

h

geeksauce

hawthorn wrote: »

I'm just presuming that as the meters are installed outside the house and underground, that we have no way of "reading" our own meter, at least with electricity we can actually check it.

What if we dispute the amount we use against the amount billed? Im sure these things can make mistakes.

h

You can lift the cover on the meter and will be able to see it easily and get your reading then.

Ogham

hawthorn wrote: »

I'm just presuming that as the meters are installed outside the house and underground, that we have no way of "reading" our own meter, at least with electricity we can actually check it.

What if we dispute the amount we use against the amount billed? Im sure these things can make mistakes.

h

The meters can be read manually by anyone - in theory ...- it will involve removing the lid to the meter box and probably the insulated cover. The numbers on the meter should be visible - but they might be hard to see.
If you have one already you could check the reading every couple of weeks to to get an idea of how much you are using.

lorenzo87

For anyone complaining about the water charges, go look at the UK, they pay far more than we do on water charges, council tax and all the extra add on's. Take it on the chin and get on with it, because bitching about it is going to get us nowhere. We do waste an awful lot of water, maybe now people will treat our natural resources with a little bit of respect.

darkpagandeath

lorenzo87 wrote: »

For anyone complaining about the water charges, go look at the UK, they pay far more than we do on water charges, council tax and all the extra add on's. Take it on the chin and get on with it, because bitching about it is going to get us nowhere. We do waste an awful lot of water, maybe now people will treat our natural resources with a little bit of respect.

Are you sure about that, We will have one of the highest water charges in the whole EU at the outset.

lorenzo87

darkpagandeath wrote: »

Are you sure about that, We will have one of the highest water charges in the whole EU at the outset.

Positive. The council tax in the UK alone averages £120 (€155) per month per household, nearly £1,500 per annum. The average water charge is then £20 per month on top of that....

So our water charges at 250-300 euro or whatever it is plus 300 for the bins sounds a lot more lucrative than living in the UK.

Idbatterim

the average yearly houselhold charge will be less than lots of middle income earners pay per week on income tax alone, what do they get for that? The water charges are much ado about nothing!

cbyrd

AlanS181824 wrote: »

I wonder if paying for the stuff that's all around us will finally fix the lime issue in my area...

I can literally go through kettles every 2 to 3 weeks!

It's a disgrace, I have to use a little sieve just to get a cup of tea!

How many years until we have a "quality of air" tax?

I could honestly see it now, it's needed to make sure Ireland's air remains pure, no smog!

Feck Irish Water.

We already do.. it's called carbon tax and it's on your electric bill you rgas bill you petrol and diesel and you coal and briquettes ..
they're way ahead of you..
Businesses in Ireland have been paying metered water charges for years, it used to be for every household too until FF scrapped it and brought it into the general taxation system. They upped the income tax and vat.
Your PPS number is a great way of tracking you from the day you're born through school into college and beyond.. just to make sure they can squeeze as much money out of you as they can.

CrazyRabbit

S.O wrote: »

On a water charges related note, Simon Coveney while giving an interview on newstalk this morning said

(at the moment Irish taxpayers are paying about 1.2 billion euros for the cost of water, water is not free at the moment)

His comment contradicts the argument some people make on internet forums that water is somehow free and now all of a sudden we need to pay for it, when we already paying for it through general taxation.

Well if they reduce the general tax rate so that each person ends up paying out the same overall amount per year, then I'm fine with the new system.

But...we will have to pay these new water fees on top of the existing taxes which will not be reduced. No matter which way you look at it, it is basically a stealth tax increase.

daveyeh

Oscar Gateaux wrote: »

It's a disgrace. Is this what James Connolly and Patrick Pearse died for?

Yes. The right to govern ourselves. To make our own decisions. We voted a government in, they decided we need water charges.

Thanks Pierce & Connolly!

Now we have to pay the gubbermint for dih wata' when we didna use tih.

W**kers.




:pac:

cerastes

lorenzo87 wrote: »

For anyone complaining about the water charges, go look at the UK, they pay far more than we do on water charges, council tax and all the extra add on's. Take it on the chin and get on with it, because bitching about it is going to get us nowhere. We do waste an awful lot of water, maybe now people will treat our natural resources with a little bit of respect.

Council tax? but that pays towards local services, police, waste removal, fire services, what do we get?
Plus there are means to reduce your bill,
Not punitive out of proportion measures introduced here.

lorenzo87 wrote: »

Positive. The council tax in the UK alone averages £120 (€155) per month per household, nearly £1,500 per annum. The average water charge is then £20 per month on top of that....

So our water charges at 250-300 euro or whatever it is plus 300 for the bins sounds a lot more lucrative than living in the UK.

So they pay 20 per month, about 240 and we pay 250-300 euro, and we get what? private bin charges and what services? are paid for by our equivalent charge?

Banjo String

Look what lies in store (possibly) for those that submit pps numbers.

Irish Water | Uisce ÉireannSearch


Data Protection

In order for Irish Water to provide the Customer with Water Services, it is necessary for Irish Water to collect and use data, including personal public service numbers, relating to the Customer. This data is used mainly to manage and administer the Customer account and for operational reasons, including for example, visits to the Premises, works required at the Premises and construction and maintenance activities. In addition, data relating to the Customer may be used for health and safety, administration, risk assessment, marketing and credit checking purposes . Irish Water may use the data relating to the Customer to carry out credit checks and for fraud prevention with licensed agencies including the Department of Social Protection and fraud prevention agencies. This data may be recorded by these organisations to prevent fraud, help make credit decisions about the Customer and for debt collection purposes. Irish Water may keep the Customer's data for a reasonable period after the Customer ceases to be supplied with Water Services but will not keep it for any longer than is necessary and/or as required by law.

Irish Water may share the Customer's data with agents or third parties who act on behalf of Irish Water in connection with the activities referred to above. Such agents or third parties are only permitted to use the Customer's data as instructed by Irish Water. They are also required to keep the Customer's data safe and secure. The data that we collect from you may be transferred to, and stored at, a destination outside the European Economic Area ("EEA"). In the event that the data is stored outside of the EEA, Irish Water shall procure that all relevant laws are complied with to secure the data. It may also be processed by staff operating outside the EEA who works for us or for one of our suppliers. Such staff maybe engaged in, among other things, the processing of your request for information and the provision of support services. By submitting data to Irish Water, the Customer agrees to this transfer, storing or processing. Irish Water will take all steps reasonably necessary to ensure that your data is treated securely and in accordance with this Clause 19.

Irish Water may disclose the Customer's data to third parties in the event that it sells or buys any business or assets, in which case it may disclose Customer data to the prospective seller or buyer or such business or assets; if Irish Water or substantially all of its assets are acquired by a third party, in which case Customer data held by it about its Customer will be one of the transferred assets. Irish Water may also disclose Customer data if it is under a duty to disclose or share Customer data in order to comply with any legal obligation, or in order to protect the rights, property, or safety of Irish Water, its customers or others. This includes exchanging information with other companies and organisations for the purposes of fraud protection and credit risk reduction. Irish Water will also disclose Customer data if it believes in good faith that it is required to disclose it in order to comply with any applicable law, a summons, a search warrant, a court or regulatory order, or other valid legal process.

From time to time the Customer may speak to employees of Irish Water (or agents acting on its behalf) by telephone. To ensure that Irish Water provides a quality service, the telephone conversations may be recorded. Irish Water will treat the recorded information as confidential and will only use it for staff training/quality control purposes, confirming details of the conversations with Irish Water or any other purposes mentioned in this Clause 19.

The Customer has a right to ask for a copy of the Customer's data (Irish Water is entitled to charge a nominal administration fee for this) which is held by Irish Water about the Customer. If the Customer wishes to avail of this right, a request must be submitted in writing to: Irish Water, Data Protection Officer, PO Box 860, South City Delivery Office, Cork City. In order to protect the Customer's privacy, the Customer may also be asked to provide suitable proof of identification. If any of the Customer's details are incorrect the Customer is entitled to notify Irish Water to amend such details. Where the Customer has any queries in respect of Customer data it should contact Irish Water using the details provided in Clause 20.2.

If the Customer signs up for any of the Irish Water online services and Irish Water communicate with the Customer by email, the Customer is solely responsible for the security and integrity of the Customer's own email account. The Customer accepts that electronic mail passing over the Internet may not be free from interference by third parties. Consequently, while Irish Water will take all reasonable security measures, Irish Water cannot guarantee the privacy or confidentiality of information relating to the Customer when passing over the Internet. Unfortunately, the transmission of information via the internet is not completely secure. Although Irish Water will do its best to protect Customer data, it cannot guarantee the security of Customer data transmitted via the internet; any transmission is entirely at the Customer's own risk.

Marketing

Irish Water and/or authorised agents acting on behalf of Irish Water, may wish to contact the Customer by text message, email, post, landline or in person about water related with products or services which may be of interest to the Customer ("Marketing Purpose").

https://www.water.ie/data-protection-notice/

Why anyone would willingly consent to this is madness.

Are they actually telling us that they'll prob be sold off in the near future, and when that happens, they'll pass your details on?

Ogham

Banjo String wrote: »

Look what lies in store (possibly) for those that submit pps numbers.



Why anyone would willingly consent to this is madness.

Are they actually telling us that they'll prob be sold off in the near future, and when that happens, they'll pass your details on?

Mostly bog standard data protection stuff - similar to many others.

Banjo String

Ogham wrote: »

Mostly bog standard data protection stuff - similar to many others.

Its just the utility providers requesting a pps number in the first place is odd so.

dxhound2005

Banjo String wrote: »

Its just the utility providers requesting a pps number in the first place is odd so.

I think it's a bit mad myself to base the charge on the number of people in the house and give so called free allowances to everyone. Much too much administration. But if that is the system then establishing who is living at the address by PPS numbers is logical.

It should just be a charge for whatever is on the meter or where there is no meter a charge linked to the property tax. Just my opinion of course but that's how it is done in England for instance.