Updated at 8:35pm
THE DEPARTMENT OF Social Protection is keeping its dedicated helpline for the water conservation grant open until midnight tomorrow, to accommodate an expected late rush of people applying for the rebate.
The deadline is tomorrow – but in a statement this afternoon, the Department confirmed the line would stay open right up to the midnight deadline.
It will be open tonight until 10pm.
Some 716,000 grant applications have been received by the Department so far, the statement said.
A total of 395,000 households have already received their payment, and it’s expected that all payments will be made by the end of this month.
Irish Water reported yesterday that it was dealing with 300% more calls than usual – many of them from people looking for their account number, ahead of the grant deadline.
Grant or bribe?
It was announced last November that every household in the country would be entitled to a €100 rebate from the Department of Social Protection if they signed up with the utility.
Decried by some opposition politicians as a ‘bribe’, the measure was one of several unveiled as part of the Government’s revised charging scheme, in the wake of a series of large-scale public protests against the proposed structure of water charges.
Answering parliamentary questions in June, Social Protection Minister Joan Burton confirmed it will cost some €6 million to administer the payment – on top of the €130 million being set aside by the Department of the Environment for the grants themselves.
The first payments, direct to bank accounts, were made last month.
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