Holiday home owners in Waterford and Wexford have expressed anger at the imposition of water charges. They claim the charges are discriminatory as holiday homes use less water than residential ones and have made a difficult tourism season worse.
Ms Mary Power, the managing director of Self Catering Ireland, which has 2,500 properties throughout the State, said the owners of holiday homes in the two counties had been issued with bills of £300 a year for water.
The two county councils concerned, she said, had approved planning permission for holiday homes built under tax-relief schemes to encourage tourism and create employment in seaside resorts. "Now they want to charge an extra £300 per year per house. 2001 has been a very difficult year in tourism in Ireland with the impact of the foot-and-mouth crisis. This extra charge on an already stretched industry seems very harsh," she said.
Ms Power said an attempt to levy water charges on the bed-and-breakfast industry had caused "public uproar" in 1998.
"I think the local authorities should look very carefully at the situation again and come back to the self-catering industry with a new proposal or better still withdraw the levy completely."
Attempts to get a comment from Waterford or Wexford county councils were unsuccessful. A Waterford County Council source, however, said the charge imposed on holiday homes was £240 a year, rather than £300, and had been in place for some time.