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Irish Water to take responsibility for administration of Kerry business water accounts from council

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IRISH WATER will this week begin the process to take in charge the administration of almost 18,000 business customer accounts in Kerry. The change will see responsibility for account administration for existing business customers in Kerry move to Irish Water from Kerry County Council. Charges for business customers, credit terms and the frequency of billing will remain unchanged while this transition is taking place.
Business customers in Kerry will now have a single point of customer contact for all queries in relation to water supply, wastewater treatment and business account management. Irish Water will contact all 17,924 business customers and other affected groups directly, once the transition takes place. Bills will be issued from Irish Water directly, as they fall due, from December onwards.
Irish Water took over responsibility for providing public water services to business customers in January 2014. Before this, local authorities billed businesses for water services provided to them and they have continued to issue bills on behalf of Irish Water on an interim basis since then. A process is now beginning to transfer this billing process to Irish Water as part of the transition of water service delivery from Local Authorities to Irish Water.
In Kerry, Irish Water is currently working on a €30 million project to upgrade the Kerry Central Regional Water Supply Scheme. This will ensure a safe and secure supply of water to over 62,000 residents and remove them from the EPA’s remedial action list (RAL). It was also announced recently that a €4.5 million contract has been signed to upgrade the water treatment plant in Kenmare, which will enable the removal of 2,200 people from the RAL.
Irish Water began the process of billing transfer on a phased basis in mid-July and to date administration for 22 local authorities, including Cork city, Clare, Tipperary and Offaly have successfully been transferred to the utility. Prior to bills being issued, Irish Water will contact customers directly in each county to explain what is happening. Any customer with a query in relation to the process can contact Irish Water on 1850 778 778 or 01 707 2824.
Elected representatives seeking further information from Irish Water in relation to how the administrative change will affect business customers in their constituency should contact our dedicated elected representatives support desk.