Water grant’s need for PPS numbers is ‘farcical’, TD says

Fianna Fáil environment spokesman Barry Cowen has said the implementation of water charges is "getting more farcical by the day" because PPS numbers will be required to secure the €100 conservation grant.

The Department of Social Protection, headed by Tánaiste and Labour leader Joan Burton, is administering the water conservation grant on behalf of the Department of the Environment, which has Labour's Alan Kelly at the helm.

A spokeswoman for the Department of Social Protection said letters would be sent from today to householders who had registered their principal private residence with Irish Water by June 30th, inviting them to apply for the grant.

People will be asked to provide the PPS numbers when applying for the €100 in online or phone applications.

The closing date for applications is October 8th, 2015.

Mr Cowen said last year it had been decided Irish Water would no longer require individuals’ PPS numbers: “Only last November, they instructed Irish Water to delete 900,000 PPS numbers. It gets more farcical by the day.”

Latest legislation

However, a Department of the Environment spokesman said the latest water charges legislation did not include provision for PPS number collection.

He said a section of the 2015 Environment (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act provided for either the Local Government Management Agency (LGMA) or Irish Water to be tasked with establishing and maintaining the database.

Discussions were ongoing about the 2016 database and details about the grant for next year had yet to be finalised, he added.

He said Irish Water was passing on registration details to the Department of Social Protection, which is administering the scheme.

The issue of providing PPS numbers only arose with the department administering the scheme, he said.

Administration of database

A letter sent to LGMA by the Department of the Environment’s water sector reform programme management last month stated that the department “remains strongly of the view that the LGMA is the most suitable partner to establish and administer the new database on the Minister’s behalf”.

Meanwhile, the Department of Social Protection spokeswoman said the first payments were expected to issue to householders’ nominated bank accounts in mid-September, with all payments expected to be made by the end of October.

She said a “preferred bidder” had been selected following a procurement process to provide customer support measures, such as providing information on the grant and assisting householders to make online or phone applications for the grant.

“All costs incurred by the Department of Social Protection in relation to the set-up and administration of the water conservation grant will be recouped from the Department of the Environment,” she added.

Sinn Féin Senator David Cullinane said the water conservation grant was "papering over the cracks of failed policy".

Mr Cullinane said: “The government should go back to the drawing board, scrap water charges in their entirety and fund water through general taxation and end the nonsense of these conservation grants on the one hand and these charges on the other.”