Water charges for all homes in Northern Ireland: New consultation under way

The consultation by the the Department for Infrastructure follows a direction from the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, Chris Heaton-Harris back in September to all NI departments to examine ways to raise revenue and find savings.

This is part of a range of public consultations on measures to support budget sustainability and raise additional revenue which has been ordered as a result.

Successive Stormont governments in the north have voted to prevent the introduction of the water charges, but with no Executive now in place the plans could go ahead.

When the government south of the border tried to introduce such charges, widespread non-compliance with people refusing to pay and resisting the installation of water meters led to the scheme eventually being scrapped.

Installing water meters at homes across the north would cost an estimated £300m according to the consultation documents, which have been approved by the Secretary of State.

The consultation, the Department said, “provides an overview of potential water and sewerage charging revenue raising options which could be introduced in Northern Ireland, with a focus on those areas which would offer greatest value in helping to address the unsustainability of public finances”.

Sinn Féin said its party remain opposed to household domestic charges, and the party’s former Minister and economy spokesperson Conor Murphy accused the British Secretary of State of having ‘forced’ a public consultation on water charges.

“This will only add to the cost of living and the cost of doing business. I stopped the imposition of water charges when I was Regional Development minister with the full support of Executive colleagues.

“Sinn Féin remain opposed to household domestic charges. We already pay for water through our rates.

“It is essential that the Executive is restored so that local elected representatives can protect households from this Tory policy.”

The nconsultation states that NI Water provides 605 million litres of drinking water every day to 829,000 households and businesses and recycles wastewater.

The consultation said that it costs around £680 million each year for NI Water to deliver these services “and given the Executive’s policy not to directly charge domestic water users, this is funded through government subsidy, revenue raised by non-domestic charging and through borrowing”.

Ageing infrastructure across the north requires £2 billion to be invested up to 2027, the documents state, while claiming that the public funding system “does not provide a reliable source for the sustained investment programme required.”

The Department meanwhile said the new consultation “sets out and seeks views on the main pathways through which water and sewerage charging could be introduced, how a relief scheme to protect vulnerable people might be developed, and how charging might be billed and collected.

“It also asks about three other revenue raising options: the removal of the domestic allowance for non-domestic customers; charging customers for domestic septic tank desludging; and recovering the cost of roads drainage from all customers.”

The consultation document with full details of the options and how to provide your views is available here: www.infrastructure-ni.gov.uk/consultations/water-and-sewerage-charges-options-revenue-raising

The consultation runs for 14 weeks from now until March 13, 2024.