Implementing Water Charging in Northern Ireland

26/11/2004

Implementing Water Charging in Northern Ireland

Embargoed until 00:01 hours, Friday 26 November 2004.



This paper, by Tony Simpson (Department for Regional Development, Northern Ireland), will be presented at the ESRI workshop entitled "Trickle or treat - Water quality, investment and pricing", on on Friday, 26 November, 2004, from 0900-1300, at the ESRI Offices, 4 Burlington Road, Dublin 4.



Currently, Water Service operations are financed mainly from the Northern Ireland public expenditure budget, with an element of funding raised by levying direct charges to certain categories of non-domestic customers (mostly larger users).



However, the present arrangements for financing and delivering these services are in urgent need of reform. The reasons are ageing infrastructure, increasing demand, and the EU’s Water Framework Directive.



The investment requirement has been estimated to be some £3 billion and it has been decided that water services should become fully self-financing. The non-domestic sector will face charges that reflect the service they receive and households will now pay a direct charge.



The paper spells out the options and will provide a more detailed discussion of the rationale underpinning Water Reform in Northern Ireland, and the Department for Regional Development’s experience of the process of developing policy in this area to date.



An Integrated Impact Assessment (IIA) of the Water Reform proposals, providing a detailed discussion of the policy rationale for reform, and addressing matters such as equality and regulatory impact will be published for consultation on 29th November 2004 (the IIA documentation will be available on the Water Reform website, www.waterreformni.gov.uk. Further information on Water Reform, including the results of the 2003 consultation exercise is also available on the website).