1,000 city businesses face having their water cut off

Date Published: 03-Jun-2010

By Dara Bradley

MORE than a thousand city businesses are on the verge of having their water supply cut-off because they have failed to pay their local authority water rates charges, the Galway City Tribune has learned.

And the failure by businesses to pay their water rates and commercial rates means Galway City Council is facing a shortfall in funding of almost €21 million this year, which could have serious repercussions for the services it provides.

New figures reveal that an astonishing 1,600 of the 2,700 businesses in Galway City who are obliged to pay water charges to Galway City Council are in arrears.

Of these 1,600, a total of 1,027 businesses and other metered buildings (hospitals, schools etc) are in serious danger of having their water turned-off – they are in the ‘critical’ category because they owe more than €100 for a period of over 56 days.

Once a business owes more than €100 for more than 56 days, efforts are stepped up to recoup the arrears – the longer the outstanding bill isn’t paid and the higher the amount owed the more likely businesses are to be cut-off and/or brought to court.

Between January 2009 and May this year around 100 business or metered premises have had their water supply stopped because of outstanding bills and as of yesterday 15 in arrears premises in the city were without water.

The Council has confirmed that as of this week it is owed a total of €3.2 million in unpaid water rates bills.

The Council has also confirmed that in addition to unpaid water rates bills it is owed roughly €18.5 million in unpaid commercial rates from business since the beginning of 2009.

“We are not gone bust and we will continue to provide the services but it is obviously a very serious situation,” said a Council spokesperson.

The biggest users of water are schools and other educational institutions, hospitals, and hotels. The spokesperson insisted the Council would not be writing off the debt, even if the businesses in question had gone bust.

 “The debt is still a debt and is still there even if the business closes and even if businesses have been cut off, we will be pursuing the debt,” he said.

The Council insists that its water charges are among the cheapest in the country after it installed new equipment and carried out upgrade works at the city’s treatment plants in 2007 and after, following the cryptosporidium contamination crisis. It charges €1.75 per cubic metre of water which actually costs €1.90 to produce.

The Council spokesperson appealed to business who may be finding it difficult to pay their water or commercial rates to contact them and not ignore the problem.

“We are not writing off any of this debt but a repayment plan can be worked out with businesses who are in difficulty,” he said.

For more on this story, see the Galway City Tribune