Water charges statement before schools re-open

A comprehensive Government statement on the interim water charges to be levied on schools is expected to be issued before they re-open in January, according to Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Mr Ahern, who rejected Opposition claims that he was forced into a U-turn on the water charges controversy, yesterday told the Dáil that he thought it was the first time "in my memory of implementing programmes for government that when you implement something, it is considered to be a U-turn".

He said the statement on the operation of the new flat-rate water charges system would be released before schools returned on January 7th, and the Government would deal with it at its first Cabinet meeting on January 4th.

Mr Ahern was speaking following his unexpected announcement in the Dáil on Tuesday that schools would not be required to pay full water charges possibly up to the end of 2009, when the EU water framework directive is set to be fully implemented.

Instead, they would be expected to pay a flat-rate fee based on the number of pupils. The State's 4,000 schools were levied with water charges, and a number had received bills for thousands of euro.

Mr Ahern insisted however that "not many have received such bills". "In the case of a number of schools that had received such bills during the year, they had been negotiated downwards with the local authorities. Others that received quite large bills were the result of arrears," he said.

Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny who has repeatedly raised the issue, questioned Mr Ahern about the implementation of the new scheme and asked if the flat-rate system would continue from 2010 and if schools could dispose of the bills they had so far received "in the wastepaper bin".

Mr Ahern reiterated that during the transition period, schools should "monitor water usage and institute repairs and conservation measures during this period. There already is support for so doing. The Government also has sought advice from the Attorney General's office regarding the long-term options".

Mr Kenny pressed on what schools should do in the interim. "Must schools that received bills of between €500 and €10,000 hold on to those bills or dump them?" he asked.

"Will they be paying a flat charge from January 1st? If so, how is it to be computed on the basis of school size? What will the flat charge be for a 40-pupil country school in Cahirciveen as opposed to one in Kildare that is bursting at the seams?"

He asked if schools that had already paid their bills would receive "a refund over and above the flat rate the Taoiseach intends to introduce for the transition period? This refund could be used for many facilities in those schools."

Mr Ahern did not refer to the refund, but said that even if it were possible to have a flat rate for everyone "there would be no incentive for schools to conserve water. There are pilot schemes in many schools and these have shown how much water the schools can conserve".

Mr Ahern said the combined charge for water and waste water services across local authorities varied from 0.99 cent to 2.62 cent per cubic metre and the average was 1.74 cent.

"Some of the schools that have had high costs this year accrued them because of remedial work or leaks. One school that had a bill of €6,000, spent €500 on repairs and thereby reduced its bill to just over €1,000. There is a variety of reasons and we must work out a fair system."