Seán Canney, an Independent Dáil deputy and a TD for Galway East, has voiced concern over plans to raise water rates for non-domestic consumers from October onwards. He fears small businesses and farmers will bear the disproportionate brunt of the changes. A former minister of State for the Office of Public Works, Canney, is appealing to the Government to mediate with Uisce Éireann to refrain from implementing the new pricing structure.
The new water and wastewater pricing model, effective from the start of October, will see the standard charge per connection surge from €43 to €83. Additionally, Band 1 users (consuming less than 1,000 square meters of water) will experience a 15 per cent hike in water costs, with incrementally greater increases for larger consumers.
Canney argues that the proposed changes will burden an already challenging trading environment for small businesses and farmers who have seen steep increases in electricity and other operating costs. He also emphasised the claim by Uisce Éireann to further raise water costs is ill-timed.
Canney stated that farmers are already heavily impacted by a decline in income, according to recent data from the Teagasc survey. Extracting higher costs for water connections from them, particularly from dry stock and suckler farmers, will create an unjust financial strain. Small businesses are also hanging on by a thread under stringent conditions.
Earlier in the year, these new rates were endorsed by the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities (CRU). Irish Water declared there had not been any adjustments to tariffs for business customers since their last establishment in 2019. They cited a CRU advisory note which mentioned most customers will see their annual bills rise by less than €250.
Irish Water further stated those customers facing more significant hikes might qualify for a bill capping scheme, if the cost of the increased tariff exceeds €750.
The statement revealed that a hefty 86 per cent (162,905 connections) of clients would experience yearly expense hikes of less than €250, while 5.4 per cent are projected to face increases between €250 and €500 annually. Furthermore, 7.4 per cent are expected to shoulder price surges of between €500 and €5,000 a year, whereas under one per cent will deal with price hikes above €5,000.
However, these looming rate hikes, according to Mr Canney, place a significant burden on certain individuals and could pose the final blow that fractures their resolve. He fears that these imposed measures might lead to more shuttering of small family-run enterprises and intensify the exodus from the farming sector, requiring the government to step in without any delay.
“No doubt, this doesn’t bode well for the rural parts of Ireland, and it’s their economy that will suffer the most from these unwarranted and poorly timed inflation of fees,” he articulated.