No refund for families who have paid water charges

Fr Tod Umptious

This is hilarious.

FF throw a populist bone to the electorate late in the campaign.

The people bite and FF reap the rewards.

Now we have the hangover.

What do FF do if they are any part of a govt., senior or junior.

Do they drop it and blame FG for using it as a red line ?

Do they silently drop it and say they looked at the books and it can't be done ?

Do they get rid of water charges and introduce some other tax to cover the shortfall ?

Do they bin water charges and tell all who paid hard luck?

Do they pay back the people who paid and also take back the grant ?

All of the above will be meet with outrage from some quarter you can be sure.

Elemonator

Can't really see the big deal about 160 euro. They'll get us back with something far worse now.

Tomagotchye

Irish Water will survive. We're in too deep at this point and cannot back out. They'll re-brand it and look at reforming it but the water charges will stay.

It sets a dangerous precedent. Why should anyone pay anything any more when there's the possibility a mob will give out and people might back down.

Water services in the country are and always have been a joke. We need to start paying for it. I think we need to look at how Irish Water works and tweak it to suit but we're not going back. I remember drinking water in Galway and half the time it would be dirt and half the time is was basically chlorine.

Arkady

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Yep proponent after proponent for Irish Water lied ad swore blind that it would be above board and properly managed "this time".

oscarBravo

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

I think its also pretty easy to claim a refund of DD payments thanks to SEPA, so I might look into that also.

A payment made in the last 8 weeks can be refunded with no questions asked, but that doesn't affect whether or not you owe the money. A payment made in the last 13 months will be refunded if you can demonstrate that it was taken in error.

Arkady

Tomagotchye wrote: »

I remember drinking water in Galway and half the time it would be dirt and half the time is was basically chlorine.

So other than paying twice for it now, through both general taxation, even more dodgy contracts, even more jobs for the boys, and direct charges, what's changed ? Perhaps another Phil Hogan will be along to tell us it'll all work well and be sorted out soon.

mjp

Had amount deducted from Irish water yesterday and just off the phone to ulsterbank in getting it cancelled. Also to my surprise managed to get all payments since june last year reversed also and €260 will be back in my bank ac in 48 hours.

Would advise anyone to get onto their bank to see what they can get reversed until there's more clarity on situation. Found ulsterbank very obliging and easy deal with compared to boi when I tried to get payment reversed in the past.They asked me to fill out all sorts of forms online to get payment reversed.

Crocked

Arkady wrote: »

So other than paying twice for it now, through both general taxation

Except we're not paying it twice. The tax income that was being used to under invest in our water infrastructure in the past is now invested in things like health, schools etc. Im guessing your all for cutting the health budget or social welfare budget now that FF has seen their way to stopping all funding to Irish Water?

Arkady

Crocked wrote: »

Except we're not paying it twice. The tax income that was being used to under invest in our water infrastructure in the past is now invested in things like health, schools etc. Im guessing your all for cutting the health budget or social welfare budget now that FF has seen their way to stopping all funding to Irish Water?

You've selectively edited and attempted to misquote the post. I'm afraid you can't successfully separate what actually happened (reality) from what you'd and all the lying political parties like to try and spin. Even the law abiding people that faithfully paid the water charges are wiser to you now. Is that you Phil ? General taxation was not reduced to take account of the water charges, nor is health and education in any better shape since Irish water, in fact it's worse.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

tipptom

Terri26 wrote: »

People who didn't pay were taking a chance/risq themselves. I'll be annoyed if people do get refunded as they didn't take the risk.

Kind of a reverse of the Bondholders situation

Crocked

Arkady wrote: »

You've selectively edited and attempted to misquote the post. I'm afraid you can't successfully separate what actually happened (reality) from what you'd and all the lying political parties like to try and spin. Even the law abiding people that faithfully paid the water charges are wiser to you now. Is that you Phil ? General taxation was not reduced to take account of the water charges, nor is health and education in any better shape since Irish water, in fact it's worse.

I didn't selectively quote or attempt to misquote. I quoted the exact point that I was taking issue with. I didn't include the rest of your ramblings about the "the man" and them being out to get us.

You're making my argument for me. Taxation wasn't reduced, nor should it have been, to take account of water being billed directly so that that money could then be redirected to other areas in need of investment. Well until they came up with that silly grant payment. That a service hasn't miraculously improved in a short period of time doesn't mean that we should cut taxes to offset the water charges and then at the same time moan about lack of resources for key state services.

And back to my original post, unlike you claimed, we weren't paying for water twice. People who have their own wells or private systems whilst water services were being paid from general taxation can quite rightly say they were paying twice. But most of the moaners don't fall into this category

granturismo

mjp wrote: »

... and just off the phone to ulsterbank in getting it cancelled. Also to my surprise managed to get all payments since june last year reversed also and €260 will be back in my bank ac in 48 hours...

I'm also with UB. How did you manage to get €260 refunded? thanks.

arayess

mahoganygas wrote: »

I paid my bills in 2015. If FF or anyone else scraps charges then I want to see 1 of 3 things happening:

1. Non payers are pursued and forced to pay arrears in full for 2015.

2. People like me who paid in full will receive a refund.

3. When water charges come back in 5 years down the road that my previous payments are credited to my account. Those who didn't pay in 2015 will indirectly pay in 2020.

Anything less than this is an insult to law abiding citizens who pay their taxes every day.

What an utter mess.

good luck with that !!

never paid .

Although I had a thought , if I knew that water(and other resources) were protected constitutionally against privatization . then I might consider paying for water - depends on other levels of taxation though

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

oscarBravo

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

It doesn't. It's part of the mile-high stack of nonsense that's been talked about in relation to Irish Water - stuffing rubbish into the constitution about preventing privatisation.

granturismo

Terri26 wrote: »

People who didn't pay were taking a chance/risq themselves. I'll be annoyed if people do get refunded as they didn't take the risk.

Schadenfreude at its best.

mahoganygas

Terri26 wrote: »

People who didn't pay were taking a chance/risq themselves. I'll be annoyed if people do get refunded as they didn't take the risk.

Are you a building developer by any chance?

Or perhaps one of those "banksters" I've been hearing all about?

tipptom

The people have won,let the whingers head for Castlebar

arayess

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

It doesn't.

oscarBravo wrote: »

It doesn't. It's part of the mile-high stack of nonsense that's been talked about in relation to Irish Water - stuffing rubbish into the constitution about preventing privatisation.

of course.
god forbid somebody has an idea outside of what you think is acceptable.:rolleyes:

ideally i wouldn't put it in the constitution but we don't have any provision for laws and such that must be agreed by a plebiscite before its status can be changed outside the constitution.
If that structure was in place then fire away.
It's not rubbish...the only thing that is rubbish is your sh1ting on your people's valid ideas/concerns.

but sorry for upseting you with notions ...:rolleyes::rolleyes:

Did it ever occur to you that people don't want privatization of their water and would seek to protect this? no....you didn't ok so....

Clampdown

Irish water was a quango, set up through cronyism simply to extract money from citizens. It was never ever about water conservation, which was made obvious by the capped charge, and by their inability to meter apartment blocks. It was a symbol of the arrogance, dishonesty and corruption that is rife within Irish politics and big business, and how they view ordinary people as nothing more than peasants who they have no problem plucking their last pennies from.

If you bent over and paid it, with the typical Irish 'what can we do?' attitude, even when the anti-side had made huge strides in achieving concessions from the gov and IW, and even after the road tax and local property tax was redirected to IW, and even after reading the constant stories of corruption, lies, and incompetence that were all over the news ALL THE TIME about IW, then I have no sympathy for you whatsoever.

Maybe stand up for yourself next time. If you want to pay for a better water system, fine. If you dislike the fact that your taxes subsidize non-workers water, fine. But don't let yourself be fleeced by a disgustingly inept and corrupt company.

Anyway I suspect as soon as FF think they have a majority (next election, probably), they'll try and bring back the charge, knowing that FG can't campaign on a platform of No Water Charges. They said they'd bring it back in 5 years earlier during this election campaign. So don't worry sheep, you'll get another chance to get fleeced, to be sure.

Mr.Micro

All this thing about water charges and the country in a mess. All those who voted for FF thinking the charges were going to be lifted, are in for a wait IMO. FF will be only too happy for the charges to stay in place, thus keeping the petty anger going against FG. Why stop at water charges. There is the unfair council tax, tv licence, car tax for terrible roads, why pay them either? So petty.

MayoAreMagic

Clampdown wrote: »

Irish water was a quango, set up through cronyism simply to extract money from citizens. It was never ever about water conservation

In fairness, if they wanted to get more money, they could have done it a whole lot easier than this.

May I ask you, and anyone else, how much a month do you spend on bottled water? Wouldn't it be a better idea to upgrade our system and have that quality of water in our taps for a fraction of the price? 160 euro - yet we pay 2.50 for a 300ml bottle in a bar. We are off our heads.

If there was ever a case of cutting off our nose to spite our face this is it.

As for the people who allowed meters to be fitted, I suggest charging them at a lower tariff than those without.

gladrags

oscarBravo wrote: »

It doesn't. It's part of the mile-high stack of nonsense that's been talked about in relation to Irish Water - stuffing rubbish into the constitution about preventing privatisation.

To be fair,he never said it was in the constitution.


"if I knew that water(and other resources) were protected constitutionally against privatization"

You should know better.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

dollyk

Are some saying that we can get direct debits refunded by our bank.
Im with aib maybe I will ring tomorrow, cancel the d/d and ask about a refund >
Thanks.

MANDATORY FIELD
Signature:
Customer signature is key to
the successful operation of
the scheme. Where a signed
mandate form is not held by
the creditor then transactions
could be deemed as
unauthorised and the debtor
may be entitled to request
refund of all transactions for
the previous 13 months.

Arkady

Permabear wrote: »

This post had been deleted.

Of that list, lets have a look at who was actually involved in conceiving, setting up, running and managing the fiasco that is Irish Water.

> Inept politicians - check,
> Interfering unions - nope. I'm not fan of unions but they were against the setting up of Irish Water and had nothing to do with its planning and management. They were specifically excluded from it's setting up.
> radicalized left-wing protesters - again, not a fan, but they had nothing to do with the setting up and management of Irish water
> and freeloading customers , again, not a fan, but they had nothing to do with the conception, planning and execution of Irish Water.
> Conspicuous by their absence from your list > The management of Irish Water
> Overstaffing ? - Again nothing to do with the staff, but with the management. Existing local authority staff were more than capable of doing the job, but had been starved of funding and decent management for years. Instead they were landed with a load of inexperienced greedy and arrogant jobs for the boys cronies and spin doctors, who never managed water resources and infrastructure in their lives.

I'm not left wing, but to conclude that the fiasco that was Irish water was not due to arrogance, mismanagement and ill planning, but instead some powerful left wing conspiracy, is not addressing or acknowledging the cause of the failure. Failure to accept and learn that expensive lesson, means this utter organisational failure is doomed to be repeated.

oscarBravo

arayess wrote: »

of course.
god forbid somebody has an idea outside of what you think is acceptable.:rolleyes:

You can have and express any idea you want, but you don't have an exemption from having your ideas criticised.

ideally i wouldn't put it in the constitution but we don't have any provision for laws and such that must be agreed by a plebiscite before its status can be changed outside the constitution.
If that structure was in place then fire away.

The constitution isn't - or shouldn't be - a dumping ground for laws that the current population doesn't want future generations to be able to easily change. If you don't want the provision of water privatised, don't vote for a government that will privatise the provision of water. If a future electorate wants to allow privatisation, it can vote for a different government.

Did it ever occur to you that people don't want privatization of their water and would seek to protect this? no....you didn't ok so....

People can want what they like. It doesn't make cluttering the constitution a good idea. I'm terribly sorry for having the temerity to disagree with you, though.

gladrags wrote: »

To be fair,he never said it was in the constitution.


"if I knew that water(and other resources) were protected constitutionally against privatization"

You should know better.

I didn't say he said it was in the constitution.

oscarBravo

dollyk wrote: »

Are some saying that we can get direct debits refunded by our bank.

You might. But, as I've said already, getting a refund from the bank doesn't change the fact of whether or not you owe the money.

I pay my business taxes through SEPA. In theory, I could get a refund of my taxes from the bank - but that won't magically mean I don't owe those taxes.

jimmycrackcorm

micosoft wrote:

Effectively FF are proposing to legalise tax evasion on the principle that any tax could at any point in the future be cancelled without recourse for those who have paid said charge and no penalties for those who have not. Why would you pay anything on that basis!

But it's not tax evasion because it's a service charge. If it had been introduced as a proper tax like USC or property tax then we wouldn't be in this mess in the first place.

But then who knew a charge based on the sensibility of consumer / polluter pays principle would actually turn out to be a catch all for austerity.

xz

I haven't paid my water charges, but, I'm not averse to paying for a proper water infrastructure. What I am averse to, is being bullied into a contract with a company that was a sham from the get go, hence I decided not to pay.

esforum

vicwatson wrote: »

EU fines, we might not even be in, and there might not even be, an EU in 12 months time

rubbish, absolute rubbish. The EU will not vanish in 12 months and if Ireland didnt walk away in 2007 and 2008 we certainly wont now

esforum

xz wrote: »

I haven't paid my water charges, but, I'm not averse to paying for a proper water infrastructure. What I am averse to, is being bullied into a contract with a company that was a sham from the get go, hence I decided not to pay.

Before privatisation did you have electricity?

xz

esforum wrote:

Before privatisation did you have electricity?

I wasn't bullied into paying for that service, nor gas, or telephone etc, etc, I am not against paying for a proper water infrastructure, but not in the way that IW was set up and forced upon us, the idea was good, but the implementation was a complete farce

Birdie Num Num

xz wrote: »

I wasn't bullied into paying for that service, nor gas, or telephone etc, etc, I am not against paying for a proper water infrastructure, but not in the way that IW was set up and forced upon us, the idea was good, but the implementation was a complete farce

?

gctest50

xz wrote: »

I wasn't bullied into paying for that service, nor gas, or telephone etc, etc, I am not against paying for a proper water infrastructure, but not in the way that IW was set up and forced upon us, the idea was good, but the implementation was a complete farce

Starting from before IW was set up :

How would you implement it ? ( just a quick step by step thing)

1. ?

Charles Babbage

xz wrote: »

I wasn't bullied into paying for that service, nor gas, or telephone etc, etc, I am not against paying for a proper water infrastructure, but not in the way that IW was set up and forced upon us, the idea was good, but the implementation was a complete farce

You weren't bullied into paying for water either, you can just stop using it.

Arkady

Charles Babbage wrote: »

You weren't bullied into paying for water either, you can just stop using it.

You'd think water was a basic requirement to sustain human life they way the whingers talk (as dear leader calls them). Mr Ahern was also right, they should just kill themselves and let us get on with making money from the rest.

The peasants will even complain when our next company Irish Air wins the rights to install, supply and maintain breathing air meters and the billing system. They must think clean air just exists, and requires no real expenditure to supply and maintain.

topmanamillion

Arkady wrote: »

You'd think water was a basic requirement to sustain human life they way the whingers talk (as dear leader calls them). Mr Ahern was also right, they should just kill themselves and let us get on with making money from the rest.

The peasants will even complain when our next company Irish Air wins the rights to install, supply and maintain breathing air meters and the billing system. They must think clean air just exists, and requires no real expenditure to supply and maintain.

Ah good I've caught this thread at the hysterical stage

uck51js9zml2yt

Arkady wrote: »

You'd think water was a basic requirement to sustain human life they way the whingers talk (as dear leader calls them). Mr Ahern was also right, they should just kill themselves and let us get on with making money from the rest.

The peasants will even complain when our next company Irish Air wins the rights to install, supply and maintain breathing air meters and the billing system. They must think clean air just exists, and requires no real expenditure to supply and maintain.

Do you think this is Japan with your fancy oxygen?
http://wandertokyo.com/tokyo-oxygen-bars/

Zubeneschamali

If FG are in government, IW and water charges stay.

If FF are in Government, the utility is renamed Water Ireland, water charges are abolished, and the unrelated Household Environmental Charge or whatever pays for Water Ireland.

If SF are in government, free water and Bulmers are piped to every home.

Jack Killian

Zubeneschamali wrote: »

If FG are in government, IW and water charges stay.

If FF are in Government, the utility is renamed Water Ireland, water charges are abolished, and the unrelated Household Environmental Charge or whatever pays for Water Ireland.

If SF are in government, free water and Bulmers are piped to every home.

0/10 for effort.

If FG are in power Dinny gets the profit
If FF are in power Bertie gets the profit
If SF are in power Slab gets the profit
If a decent party or set of decent independents is in power, we get a proper water system for our taxes

Jack Killian

Jack Killian wrote: »

0/10 for effort.

If FG are in power Dinny gets the profit
If FF are in power Bertie gets the profit
If SF are in power Slab gets the profit
If a decent party or set of decent independents is in power, we get a proper water system for our taxes

One thing is for sure that no matter who is in Government, we'll still have a bunch of whingers giving out about efforts to run Ireland as an independent self financing nation,

Jack Killian

[Deleted User] wrote: »

One thing is for sure that no matter who is in Government, we'll still have a bunch of whingers giving out about efforts to run Ireland as an independent self financing nation,

Yes, but Dinny will have to learn that he can't always have his own way.

Birdie Num Num

Jack Killian wrote: »

If FG are in power Dinny gets the profit
If FF are in power Bertie gets the profit
If SF are in power Slab gets the profit

Is this kind of post indicative of the levels of intelligence out there around IW?

Jack Killian

Birdie Num Num wrote: »

Is this kind of post indicative of the levels of intelligence out there around IW?

Interesting that you skipped the post that it was in reply to.

Is this kind of post indicative of the levels of partisanship out there around IW?

johnnyskeleton

xz wrote: »

I wasn't bullied into paying for that service, nor gas, or telephone etc, etc, I am not against paying for a proper water infrastructure, but not in the way that IW was set up and forced upon us, the idea was good, but the implementation was a complete farce

If you have a private water scheme and a private waste system, you pay nothing to Irish Water and don't have to be a customer. You only pay for the service you obtain.

None of that is to take away from the legitimate concerns about the high levels of pay and expenditure incurred in the setting up of Irish Water. There are serious problems about how it spent its money. But that cannot translate into "I won't pay for water".

mickdw

As someone who has been paying for water since 1985 on a qroup scheme, I find it crazy that the water charges have been having such a widespread effect.
Personally, I feel that the property taxes would be more worthy of all this protest. After all, water charges should be pay as you use like all other utilities.
The tax on peoples property, purchased with tax paid funds is borderline criminal. I assume that this is a large part of the reason that the government has not been returned but the media and the water campaigners have hijacked the result and have turned it into a water only issue.

Fr Tod Umptious

mickdw wrote: »

As someone who has been paying for water since 1985 on a qroup scheme, I find it crazy that the water charges have been having such a widespread effect.
Personally, I feel that the property taxes would be more worthy of all this protest. After all, water charges should be pay as you use like all other utilities.
The tax on peoples property, purchased with tax paid funds is borderline criminal. I assume that this is a large part of the reason that the government has not been returned but the media and the water campaigners have hijacked the result and have turned it into a water only issue.

The left cannot attack the property tax because its a tax on wealth.

Property is an asset that counts towards wealth. The more property you have or the higher the value of the property you have the more you pay in tax.

Thus the wealthy pay more in property tax that the less wealthy.

mickdw

Fr Tod Umptious wrote: »

The left cannot attack the property tax because its a tax on wealth.

Property is an asset that counts towards wealth. The more property you have or the higher the value of the property you have the more you pay in tax.

Thus the wealthy pay more in property tax that the less wealthy.

However the reality of the situation for many families is mounting bills for average properties in expensive areas.