THE GOVERNMENT IS to begin sending out letters to those that have registered to Irish Water about the water conservation grant.

From tomorrow all householders who have registered their principal private residence with Irish Water by 30 June 2015 will receive a letter inviting them to apply for the grant.

The closing date for applications is 8 October 2015. 

PPS numbers

The department confirmed that people will be asked to provide their PPS numbers when applying for the payment which must be done online as there is no application form.

The grant payment has raised some issues for the government with Eurostat stating it had issues with Irish Water.

Setting out its issues with the €100 conservation grant being offered to households who register with the utility, Eurostat notes in its decision letter to the CSO that “it is not specified in the relevant legislation to what extent the grant will in fact be conditional on water preservation activities”.

The document continues:

All households will be eligible for this grant, even when not Irish Water customers, by mere administrative registration with Irish Water.

Payment 

The first payments are expected to issue to customers’ bank accounts in mid-September.  All payments are expected to be made by the end of October.

TheJournal.ie reported in June that the Department of Social Protection is paying a company €630,000 to deal with the ICT aspect of paying the water conservation grant.

Burton told the Dáil BearingPoint won the contract “for the extension of payment functionality and development of a customer self-service web service” in relation to the grant.

The value of the contract is €637,230.81 exclusive of all taxes and VAT.

The Department of Social Protection said that all costs incurred in relation to the set-up and administration of the Water Conservation Grant will be recouped from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in line with existing procedures in this regard.

Every effort is being made to maximise efficiencies and keep costs to the absolute minimum.

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