AS hundreds travelled to Dublin this morning for the national protest against water charges, Sinn Fein TD Martin Ferris has expressed outrage that a Tralee tenant received a letter from their landlord saying their water would be turned off for failing to register with Irish Water by January 8 or pay their charges.
The letter (seen here with names blurred out) was dated December 4 and sent to a tenant in a Tralee estate.
It states that the management company “will be left with no alternative but to turn off your water supply to your property by 8th January until registration of Irish Water has been completed”.
The management company have yet to comment on the issued letter.
“When the government announced their changes to the water charges regime they were at pains to point out that nobody would have their water turned off,” said Deputy Ferris.
“Here we are, only a few weeks later and a tenant in Tralee has received a letter from a landlord saying that their water will be turned off if they fail to register by January 8.”
“It’s outrageous that anyone, no matter what their circumstances, could be threatened to have a basic necessity such as running water taken away,” he continued.
“I am calling on Irish Water to clarify this situation and to assure tenants that they will not have their water turned off under any circumstances. The government says it has listened to people’s concerns. Clearly they listened, but they didn’t hear what people are actually saying. If they heard then they would have done the decent thing and scrap water charges and dismantle the shambles that is Irish Water,” said Deputy Ferris.
