Irish Water is taking over Dún Laoghaire’s business customers

IRISH Water has commenced the process of taking in charge the administration of 3,327 business customer accounts in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. 

The change will see responsibility for account administration for existing business customers in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown move to Irish Water from the local authority. Charges for business customers, credit terms and the frequency of billing will remain unchanged while this transition is taking place, the company has stressed.

Bills will now be issued to business customers by Irish Water directly.

Irish Water took over responsibility for providing public water services to business customers in January 2014.  Before this, local authorities billed businesses for water services provided to them and they have continued to issue bills on behalf of Irish Water on an interim basis since then.

In a statement, Irish Water said it is investing in the water and wastewater infrastructure in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown and is progressing three projects which will secure the water supply in south Dublin. 

These include a project to provide covered storage at the Stillorgan Reservoir; a project to construct a pipeline from Vartry to Callowhill; and a project to construct a new water treatment plant at Vartry. 

The company said that the new covered reservoir is essential to safeguard the quality of the drinking water for 200,000 customers, many of which live in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. 

Irish Water is also progressing projects to carry out mains rehabilitation work in Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown. This work will increase the security of the water supply to customers with fewer interruptions and improved water pressure as leakage on the water mains will be reduced.

Independent senator Victor Boyhan said the change would see the “watering down” of local government function and was therefore opposed to the move