Irish Water plans to charge €5k flat connection fee

Irish Water plans to charge ROI self-builders a flat fee of €5,636 to connect to water and wastewater services, as compared to the current average new connection fee of approximately €10,000 on one-off houses.

The change must be approved by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities (CRU); the public consultation is currently open and closes on 23 March.  Irish Water is proposing a standard connection charge of €1,935 for water and €3,701 for a wastewater connection. The changes are expected to take effect in the second quarter of 2018. Update 15/08/2018 The CRU has said in an Information Note that it would publish its recommendations in Q4 2018 and that it hoped to come to a final decision by the end of this year. The combined charge will result in lower total connection costs in 53 of the 57 current charging regimes, with an increase applying in four regimes, Irish Water told Selfbuild. One of the biggest changes under the proposed policy is that Irish Water will complete all of the connection works to the boundary of the property, providing a standard national connection service. This is not the case today where customers are often required to complete, and separately pay for, elements of these works themselves. There are currently 57 different charging regimes with over 900 different connection charges across the 31 Local Authorities. All charging regimes have different methods for calculating connection charges, including different structures and customer classifications. In addition, there are different levels of connection works performed across the charging regimes (i.e. differences in the physical and material works included and how these charges are applied). Update 22/10/2018: The CRU has endorsed Irish Water’s proposals outlined above; new fee structure to take effect in March 2019. The FAQ from Irish Water is available here.

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