In praise of The Great Unwashed
Irish Water are at it again.
Bills for exceeding fresh, waste water limits will be â¬500 a year
So after years of near rioting and after the gubmint dropping the concept of water charges, they are bringing in water charges. It’s the old trick – bring in an excess charge for reaching a limit, and then gradually reduce the limit to zero.
The regulator has capped the new charges at â¬250 each for both water and wastewater usage, meaning a maximum charge of â¬500 over a 12-month period.
Hang on a minute! Wastewater? Are they proposing meters on our sewers? Or are they going to run our sewage through our fresh water meters as well? Not that I have a meter on either so I don’t know what they are going to do about that. If I do give a shit, they aren’t going to know about it.
The CRU said that up to 10 per cent of metered households were currently using more than the annual permitted allowance.
I never knew we had a fucking “permitted allowance”. Not, you may notice a “suggested allowance” or a “recommended allowance”, but a “permitted allowance”. Do I have to get gubmint permission to do the washing-up? Fuck that.
Unmetered households, which are identified as having excessive use will be charged at the â¬500 cap unless a meter is installed. These households account for 45 per cent of Irish Waterâs 1.6 million residential customers. In such cases, Irish Water will identify district meter areas where there appears to be excess use and dispatch crews to determine households which appeared to be using above normal levels of consumption. They would then have either a meter or flow monitoring device installed.
How the fuck do you determine “excessive use” if there isn’t a meter installed? I can just imagine the scenario –
Boss: Right lads. Today we are going to check Grandad’s village for excessive use of water.
Crew: But how are we supposed to know who is using too much?
Boss: No problem. For a start, check if each villager smells. If they don’t then they are bathing too much. Check for cars that have less than half an inch of dried cow shit on the bodywork, as they obviously wash their cars too often. If that doesn’t result in widespread fines then just peer in the windows to see what the occupants are at.
An Irish Water spokesman said the first letters advising consumers about their consumption levels were expected to be issued before the end of the year.
I can’t wait.
The CRU stressed that the introduction of the charge was ânot intended as a revenue raising exerciseâ.
Hahahahahaha!! No. Of course not. â¬500 isn’t revenue. Right.
The regulator also pointed out that Irish Water cannot reduce or cut off a customerâs water supply over the non-payment of charges either temporarily or permanently.
So they can all fuck off and drown themselves.
What a pile of steaming shit.
Unlikely.
The typical proxy for this, is the presumption that the amount of waste water leaving a property is the same amount of fresh water entering the property.
Plus/minus any they'd care to attribute to weather.
So the fine is likely to basically be 2× whatever charge you get for exceeding your "permitted water allowance."
Think of it like a sugar tax, or 'alcohol allowance,' but this time for water, if it helps with the concept… 😉
On that theory, if I use a couple of thousand litres watering my lawn they will calculate that I must therefore piss out a couple of thousand litres? That would be some medical feat?
Also, by using a couple of thousand litres on said lawn, what I am in fact doing is supplying all that water directly to the water table which is naturally filtered in the process. I should be charging them.
I always thought the Emerald Isle was green because it gets a lot of rain. A lot of rain means plenty of rivers and lots of reservoirs full of water. So why is Irish Water moaning?
Of course we get a lot of rain. Ask any tourist! We must have one of the highest rainfall levels in Europe.
Irish Water must exceed Thames Water* in London for utter incompetence. As Dr Evil says, the Emerald Isle is well known for having plentiful rainfall – how could there be a shortage?
* TW fail to repair their pipework and lose up to 15% from leaks, then increase their charges to pay for repairs which do not happen. Utter chumps!
If the gas industry was losing 15% of its pipe-bound product, every town and city would have major gas-explosions every day. If those gas-guys can provide a gas-tight network, then how come the water-guys can't? Gas escapes from pipes far easier than water leaks out, so the gas-network has to be even better to stay safe.
Maybe they should sack all those water-network bunglers and sub-contract it to the good guys – the guys who don't blow up our towns and cities every day, in fact they're so good, so invisible, we never give them credit for it.
15%? Some areas of the country are losing up to 60% from the network. Irish Water are demanding billions just to fix their own leaks. They claim there isn't enough water, but then they pump millions of litres of sewage into Dublin Bay and claim that the overflow was caused by excessive rainfall. Work that one out….
It's not a good argument to encourage us Northerners to join a 32 county Ireland is it?
Cas
http://www.oldireland.ie
Instead of annexing Norn Iron to the Republic, let's annex the Republic to Norn Iron. That would solve all out problems, including Brexit.
That would be an out of the frying pan moment for the Republic. Do you really want those idiots at Stormont? You can have them for free, even if you don't take the 6 counties, please, please, just take them. 🙁 You will need a very large padded room (preferably sound proofed), and lots of straight jackets.
Ian
http://www.oldireland.ie
Presumably if there is a charge for excessive over use, there is a refund for excessive under use?
The water meter at the Manor might prove to be a valuable source of revenue!
Good idea. If a meter shows zero consumption then surely that's worth a cheque? Add to that the fact that I have two meters [neither is connected] then I should be in for quite a payment!
Here in my little “city” of Newport, VT we have both metered (minority of) homes and the non-metered (majority of) homes. The non-metered homes, like my mine, are at a quarterly “fixed” rate which combines both water and sewer even though these are itemized separately.
For metered homes the owners are charged by use on the logic that flow in = flow out. Now, Vermont is known to be the state with the oldest homes per capita blah, blah in the the US and these 200+ year old homes often have, if not the original, the next generation of fixtures on their sinks and bathtubs etc and so on. And they all tend to leak so the end benefits of having meters installed in these old homes are questionable to say the least.
Me? I’ll take the quarterly bill, my leaky faucets and take all afternoon washing the the dirt of my two (old) cars and pressure washing my house and whatever else I can find to do with a garden hose.
My sympathy to you and yours on the Emerald Island.