THE HEAD OF Irish Water has given the latest update on the forthcoming water charges in Ireland.

Water charges will come into play from October 2014, and Irish Water is the company set up to oversee their introduction.

Tierney, who was the former head of Dublin City Council, said the plan is to install just over a million meters before the end of 2016. He told Morning Ireland that a team of 1400 people will be working on behalf of Irish Water directly on the project, with 1600 in total employed. A further 400 will be employed in answering calls on the metering in the Abtran call centre.

Employment

The staff will operate in teams of two and the country will be split into eight regions for the installation of the meters. The installation will occur simultaneously nationwide.

The meters will generally be installed on the public footpath area, said Tierney, and staff will only enter into a property in certain circumstances, and only with permission.

You will get notice two weeks before anyone arrives to do work outside your home, and the works will “involve safety traffic management”, said Tierney.

The “absolute maximum” that water would be off during the period of installation is two hours and Tierney promised that for the people involved there will be “very minimal disruption”.

Irish Water intends to build up its capacity so that it will be able to go to the markets in terms of funding as investment outside the direct investment that will come from consumers themselves, said Tierney.

There is a “major series of plans” in place for Dublin, in terms of water supply and water treatment capacity.

Abtran

Irish Water will use the Abtran call centre to deal with queries from customers about the water charge process. An Abtran employee was suspended last month amid allegations that they had asked callers for their credit card details.

Tierney said that “it’s often in the middle of a crisis you see the mettle of a person and the mettle of a company”, referring to this event. He said they had “delayed for two weeks to see what the outcome of that incident was before we embraced the contract” with Abtran.

“They would now describe it as the most stringent contract they’ve ever employed,” he added, saying that it was “very heartening as well” that “Revenue are on record saying they are very satisfied with how [the situation] was dealt with”.

Read: Good news on the jobs front: Irish Water to create 400 jobs in Cork>