Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government

 

Reply

 

Under the Water Services Act s 2007 -2013, Irish Water may request its customers and certain specified persons or bodies, including the Minister for Social Protection, to provide it with information so that the Company can perform its functions under these Act s . The Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013 provides that Irish Water is responsible for public water services and can collect charges from its customers in receipt of water services provided by it. The Act also provides that responsibility for the independent economic regulation of the water sector is assigned to the Commission for Energy Regulation, the CER, which has been given statutory responsibility for protecting the interests of customers of Irish Water.

 

In advance of the introduction of domestic water charges, the Government made certain decisions on 6 May 2014 relating to the structure of water charges including, inter alia, a free allowance per household and an additional free allowance for children on the same qualifying conditions as the Child Benefit payment from the Department of Social Protection.

 

A s these allowances are to be funded by Government, Irish Water needs to ensure it has the appropriate and sufficient information to reflect these entitlements.     Irish Water is a specified body under the Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005, as amended by Section 20 of the Social Welfare and Pensions Act 2014, and is therefore permitted to request PPS numbers to authenticate the identity of the person being provided with an allowance.

 

Irish Water will treat applicants’ personal data in accordance with the Data Protection Acts 1988 and 2003. In complying with these Acts,     Irish Water must ensure that the data is only used for the purpose it was collected and must also ensure that any data collected is stored securely. The collection of Personal Public Services (PPS )     n umbers allows Irish Water to     confirm and validate the entitlement to allowances for each customer. This information will not be shared with any organisation other than the Department of Social Protection for the purpose of verification, to ensure that each household receives the allowances it is entitled to, be it the free allowance per household or any additional allowance for children in receipt of Child Benefit at that address. It will also allow Irish Water to provide e     lower charges to owners who have unoccupied dwellings.    

 

With charges effective from 1 October 2014 Irish Water is in the process of compiling the relevant data to ensure that customers can be billed accurately based on the tariff structure approved by the CER. Throughout September, Irish Water has been sending application packs to approximately 2 million households, which refer to the effective charging date and the fact that billing for domestic customers in receipt of public water services will start in January 2015. The application process will enable customers to confirm their details for billing and ,     by providing the relevant PPS numbers, claim the allowances that they are eligible for . Irish Water has confirmed that t h ere will be no repercussions for withholding telephone numbers or email addresses on the application.

 

The Commission for Energy Regulation (CER) has today made a determination on the water charges plan, submitted to it by Irish Water, which sets out the position if customers do not validate their details . In these circumstances, a default charge which does not include the free allowances will be applied to such customers.   The relevant details of the determination are available on its website ( www.cer.ie

 

Irish Water has an on – going engagement with the Data Protection Commissioner and has advised my Department that it has been asked to provide clarity on some aspects of the legal language of its data protection notice as published on its website, www.water.ie

. It has confirmed that this     notice was, and is , fully compliant with data protection requirements . However, by providing additional clarity ,     it will re-assure customers that data is held securely, used properly and not shared with third parties , except where necessary for the delivery of water services such as contractors repairing leaks. Any advice given to Irish Water from the Data Protection Commissioner will be further incorporated into its data protection notice.