Many retailers will have been bemused at the convenient way that Irish Water/Uisce Eireann manages to bill their Commercial customers.
Using the metered volume of water going in to their premises as the exact basis for their billing of the volume going out, Irish Water are accruing substantial bundles of money to which they have no proper claim to. They (IW) acknowledge this on their website and in correspondence we have seen to the Regulator (CRU).
In certain circumstances, they say, the amount of water supplied by IW to a customer’s premises can vary from the amount of wastewater discharged to the public sewer. In fact, they accept that water used in products, lost by evaporation, treated onsite for reuse or sent to a septic tank will all result in variations to the number of Units of water that are sent into the public sewers.
Irish Water is permitted by law to act in this fashion but must also provide for a system where any of their customers whose variation between Water In and Water Out is greater than 15% can apply for a different (agreed by both parties) methodology of billing the Water Out element of the bill.
CSNA will meet with Irish Water officials in mid-September to seek agreements on how our members that have substantial coffee, deli and/or bakery sales, all of which use water and don’t involve its discharge into their wastewater connection. The existing system is very bureaucratic and possibly designed to confuse and frustrate businesses who are becoming increasingly time poor.
This should be an industry-wide benefit, we welcome all the help we can get.