How not to pay water charges
Here are some of the facts they are unlikely to tell you about water charges.
You already pay €1.2bn for your water through direct and indirect taxes/VAT.
Irish Water does not have the power to garnish your wages/welfare or to plunder your bank account. They cannot turn off your water for non-payment.
You cannot be forced into a contract with a private company. THE METER IS THE CONTRACT. Do not allow them to install a meter.
Your property extends to the stopcock – curtilage – you have legal rights over this zone.
The package in September asking you to apply for your free allowance is another way of tricking you into a contract. Don’t open it, write Return to Sender with No Consent – No Contract written across it.
Irish Water will have to take you to court like any regular company. You have not entered into any contract with them – you cannot be billed by them.
Furthermore, should you protest at the installation of a meter on your property/curtilage, you do not have to supply your name & address to Gardaí unless they are charging you with an offence. Gardaí cannot use the Public Order Act 1994 against you while peacefully protesting – your constitutional rights trump legislation.
Irish Water barriers around your stopcock create a temporary workspace so you are on private property and in the workspace of Irish Water – the matter is a civil matter, the Gardaí have no jurisdiction. If Irish Water want to remove you they must get a court injunction.
Section 8/1994 Act: Failure to comply with instructions of a Garda – 'instructions' of Gardaí must be specific ‘causing a danger to the public’ etc. but your protest is a civil matter not criminal. The 1994 Act only applies to criminal matters. In fact Section 17 can be used against Irish Water's bullying and intimidation tactics.
For further information head on over to Fliuch Off Irish Water.
This non-party anti-political broadcast was brought to you on behalf of the Plain People of Ireland
Over here if the 'property' is inhabited then the water company cannot terminate the supply. This may be a European directive (not sure but as 99% of 'legislation' here is European in origin and all Parliament does is gold plate the crap chances are it is European).
If it is and the same applies over there then ANRRTS is all that is required.
They have already said that no one would be cut off. Their tactic is to apparently redue the pressure to a trickle in the "offending" households. Seeing as that is the current state of my water pressure I very much doubt I would know the difference. All that is assuming they can find my stop cock [stop sniggering at the back].
Doesn't work like that over here. EVERY property with water has a meter, and if the bill isn't paid, they come and take the meter away and disconnect the supply. They will replace the meter and reconnect once the bill is paid. As a rule of thumb, they will not usually disconnect the supply until the bill reaches €600, which for most households takes a few years.
So it takes a few years to reach €600? At the rate they inflate things here, that will soon represent a month's water supply.
Wouldn't it be nice to have those kind of "outs" over here in the states for the folks who don't live in rural areas and have their own well? As it is, the town/city provides and bills for the water you use–no outs. Being a home owner that's hooked to municiple water main is autmatically an implied contract. You don't pay, the town/city shuts of your water. Police never get involved unless, of course, you shoot the poor town worker who shows up to turn off your stop cock.
One of my [many] arguments is that I am already paying for my water through taxation. That system was quite adequate until the EU stepped in and demanded that we be billed by a private company. I have no qualms about taking pot shots at private employees – it was their choice to join the firm.
Private companies. Hah! That's a crock. And where did these private companies suddenly come from I wonder? Did Ireland have these so-called pirvate companies before the EU stuck their nose into your business?
And yes, employees are fair game although due to my merciful nature and sense of fair play, I only shoot the single ones with no kids.
Guys received my application form today.. They sent it out to me already open . The envelope has never been dampened and stuck. . So there way of getting back at people not opening the form is to open it for us… haha
Hi just a question. Maybe it has been discussed before. Where did Irish Water get individuals names and addresses. Is this a breach of data protection law?
An interesting point? Though I would imagine there are lots of [legal] ways to obtain such lists. Electoral registers are publicly available? Then there are publications such as Thom's Directory which must have legitimate sources?
Grandad thanks for your suggestions. However I am no longer on voters list (not through choice), although this might be a blessing in terms of limiting access to personal details. Thom's directory does not cover the part of Wicklow I reside. Have the tax / revenue people issued personal information to a private company Irish Water without the knowledge or consent of the Irish population. Something for us to think about. Any thoughts from readers?
A contract can be either an express contract or an implied contract. An express contract is one in which the terms are expressed verbally, either orally or in writing. An implied contract is one in which some of the terms are not expressed in words.
Implied in fact or implied in law
An implied contract can either be implied in fact or implied in law. A contract which is implied in fact is one in which the circumstances imply that parties have reached an agreement even though they have not done so expressly. For example, by going to a doctor for a physical, a patient agrees that he will pay a fair price for the service. If he refuses to pay after being examined, he has breached a contract implied in fact.
Quasi-contract
A contract which is implied in law is also called a quasi-contract , because it is not in fact a contract; rather, it is a means for the courts to remedy situations in which one party would be unjustly enriched were he or she not required to compensate the other. For example, an unconscious patient treated by a doctor at the scene of an accident has not agreed (either expressly or by implication) to pay the doctor for emergency services, but the patient would be unjustly enriched by the doctor's services were the patient not required to compensate the doctor.
Courts in Ireland will most likely see the use of the water service (conduct) as acceptance. That's why I am not overly optimistic. People with low income will not reach the European Court of Justice …
They have now changed the contract so anybody who has signed up.. need to apply again ..new terms and conditions?
This is a long story.I shall begin.I awoke one morning and looked out the upstairs window to see a number of men working at the bottom of my drive way and a large van parked inside on my driveway and a number of trestles also in my driveway no one had come to tell me what they were doing or intended to do.The legs aren't too good these days as I am 69 yrs of age,so I drove down to these workmen to enquire what they were doing.I asked and none of them had the courtesy to speak,it was obvious they were installing a water meter.I requested them to stop as they were on my property but they continued to work,I then told them to remove their van and trestles from inside my driveway which they reluctantly did. I again asked them to stop and told them that there was a meter already installed as I am currently on a community water scheme and they again completely ignored me.I informed them that I was calling the Gardai as they were trespassing on my property,this I done and was informed that it had nothing to do with them and it was a civil matter.By this time the meter was installed.It was then that I noticed that they had cut the concrete around an existing Metal cover containing a stop cop that I had properly installed when the house was being built.I told them that I owned the stop cock and metal cover which they had removed and that I wanted it returned and they had used the existing hole to put their new meter in.They were very agitated and went to their van and gave me my original stop cock back,I asked for the metal cover and he retrieved one from the cab of the van and gave me a metal cover that had Uisce on it, the one I owned had a plain cover, bearing in mind this property the stop cock and cover belonged to me.I have complain to Donegal C.C. and they referred me to Irish Water after a lot of to and fro between them for some time to get them to answer some question after some weeks I got a call from the contractor who installed the meter who they stated they had the power to go anywhere to install these meters.By the way I don't object to paying the water charge providing it remains in public ownership but I do wonder if this is the caliber of the people running this organisation I fear for the future.Amen.
Re the above.I forgot to mention.Having installed the water meter they left.I returned home and after some hours strange noises began in the plumbing system and guess what! they had turned off my water, so it was back to Irish Water and more phone calls and they eventually returned and turned the water supply on.
Welcome Jim! One thing that is apparent is that Irish Water are an incredibly ham-fisted and incompetent crowd. Some time ago one of their contractors entered my land and I found him wandering around my back garden. Needless to say I shifted him damn quick but he seemed really surprised at my attitude. They are an arrogant bunch to say the least.