Following deferral of the original implementation date of 1 May 2020, the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU) announced a revised date of 1 October 2021 for the new set of national water and wastewater business charges to come into effect.
The new business charges will apply to both business customers and mixed-use customers who use water services for both business and domestic purposes.
Irish Water says it welcomes the final decision which sets out “a national set of charges that will be transparent, cost reflective, and equitable for all businesses countrywide”.
Key Changes
- National charges as opposed to individual Local Authority charges
- Charges which reflect the actual costs of providing water services to the business sector
- Increases or decreases in charges for business customers depending on current charges
- Transitional arrangements to ensure bill changes are implemented fairly and with time to plan ahead
- Four separate tariff classes for metered connections: Bands 1 – 4
What changes can you expect?
The CRU’s decision on future business charges reflects the following six principles:
- Equity and no undue discrimination: charges should be equitable and not unduly discriminate between customers.
- Efficiency in the use of water services: charges should incentivise the efficient use of water services.
- Cost reflectivity: charges should be reflective of the costs of providing water services.
- Cost recovery: charges should allow for the recovery of efficiently incurred costs of providing water
services. - Stability: charges should be designed to ensure customer bill volatility is kept to a minimum.
- Simplicity: charges should be clear, transparent and easy to understand.
Transitioning to new charges
Irish Water are to transition customers to the new charges depending on how big an impact the charges will have on their bill:
- Customers whose annual bill is expected to decrease or increase by no more than €250 will have the new enduring tariffs applied to their bill from 1 October 2021.
- For customers estimated to face an increase of between €250 and €750 in their annual bill, Irish Water will transition these connections to their enduring tariffs over three years from 1 October 2021.
- For customers estimated to face an increase of €750 or greater in their annual bill, Irish Water is to automatically apply a 10% cap to the annual increase over three years starting from 1 October 2021. Customers can opt-out of receiving this cap
More Information
Full details on the new charges, including tables showing the new tariff classes and rates, new metered enduring tariff rates and unmetered tariffs are available on the Irish Water website:
https://www.water.ie/business/billing/charges/
Information on the changes is also available as a downloadable booklet:
https://www.water.ie/business/billing/charges/2021.05.28_IW_A5_Business_booklet.pdf
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