IRISH Water’s move to charge customers a minimum of €188 plus other fees for call outs, has been challenged by a prominent opponent of the charges who is asking the Energy Regulator to reject the application.
CITY North Sinn fein councillor Maurice Quinlivan says the call-out charge is totally unacceptable and, for many people on benefit payment, it is their entire weekly income.
“This is a charge that most families won’t be able to pay”, he said.
“The longer this Irish Water debacle continues, the more obvious it becomes that this is just one massive attempt to extract as much cash out of Irish households as possible. If this latest plan goes ahead we will be forced to pay Irish Water to repair the shoddy work of their contractors,” claimed Cllr Quinlivan.
The Sinn Féin party leader of the merged Limerick City and County Council, likened the latest proposal by the water utility company to a work of fiction.
“Just like Alice in Wonderland, they are going further down the rabbit hole”, he said.
“In the real world, I don’t know of any business where you can be paid to do shoddy work and then paid a second come back again to clean up the mess you created in the first place.
“But, seemingly in the fantasy world of Irish Water, and encouraged by their puppet masters in this Fine Gael/Labour government, this rip-off seems to be perfectly acceptable,” he commented.
Cllr Quinlivan described Irish Water as a “complete shambles”, maintaining that it has proved itself to be “unable to deliver the service needed”.
“The company is toxic. It must now be radically reformed into a single utility that acts in the interests of our citizens as suggested by Sinn Féin in our proposals for the delivery of water services. This must include the complete abolition of domestic water charges,” he explained.
In response, a spokesperson for Irish Water explained, “Call out charges are standard for a utility and are determined by the Regulator. If a customer has a problem with water services on their own property they can either use a private contractor or Irish Water.
“There is no question of customers undertaking or paying for works on the public water system”, the spokesperson said.
