No it just means they have a lot of incompetent people working for them John tierney, for example a man with a proven track record in failure.

@Martin, if there’s one thing we do well in this country, it’s reward failure in public office. And handsomely.

The same thing happened to my mother who is almost 80, my father died in 2003 yet she received bills from Irish Water and the Household Charge addressed to him. Needless to say this caused considerable distress. Despite contacting the relevant agencies and trying to explain the situation, an arduous task in itself, they insisted the only name they had on file for that address was my late father.
While my brother and I would be quite happy to let them stand before a court and explain how they chased a man 11 years dead, despite being told this several times by his family, my mother can’t contemplate the idea of a court and potentially owing money and fines. For this reason alone, her peace of mind, a dead man will pay the bills.

Good observation, Chris,
So we have to consider that a third party supplied the data to IW so that this man could have been registered.

@Paul Roche , well he certainly didn’t register, his widow didn’t register, so where did the information come from? and what permissions were used?

It’s no wonder they have 1.23 million signed up. They have are parents who are no longer with us on them figures. Awful company ran by fools.

YAWN !!!!

That’s the question that should be answered, Chris.
Who broke what law so that IW could perform this f**k up.

@Chris my guess is that when this information was taken permission was given to share the data, in those days the schemes were opt out and well hidden. It is permissable under data protection rules to share/buy/sell information where this permission is “granted”. IW now have an obligation to update the records that they hold for this individual to make them accurate. None of this means DP rules have been breached by IW

The questions still need t be asked and answered @Padraig

I wish I was thus man sometimes when I see the way Ireland is

Paul it’s possible, and likely, that no laws were broken. Of the original data source had permission to share – and it probably did as dp was pretty slack 10 years ago compared to today – and the data wasn’t updated at time of death because no notification was given, then it’s perfectly legal & feasible for outdated data to be in circulation. What would be illegal would be the failure to update the data when notified of change.
I’m not defending anyone here, but that’s the reality.

that may well be the benign reality @Padraig, but the bottom line is I just do not trust either this Government or the entity that is IW, enough to take any of this a face value.
At best it shows incompetence, at worst it may show illegality, but either way, it should be of concern to Irish citizens

Neal – It just shows a huge level of incompetence .
In any case , in a matter of months, it will no longer exist .

Put simply , Irish Citizens will not be conned by further Double Taxation !

Chris, they’re using Revenues database.

It looks like they’re sending out this crap in the desperate hope that people will contact them to correct thei records, at which time that person has unwittingly registered.

Irish Water – the quintessential scam

1995. That’s a bit longer than 10 years Padraig.

https://www.dataprotection.ie/docs/EU-Directive-95-46-EC/89.htm

@Were jammin , is it legal for a private utility company to use the revenue database? I would also imagine that the revenue database would not be so out of date?

I can’t be certain but if I remember correctly in my mothers case both Irish Water and the Household Charge people said the only PPS number they had on file for the address in question was my late fathers. As Chris has pointed out they obviously didn’t ask his permission to access his data.

@ Chris H: The so called data protection commissioner gave the government permission to mine utility companies databases to build the LPT database along with revenues records. They’re using a statutory instrument to mine Revenues database to hand to IW.

Basically, in one instance they didn’t like the rules so they had a cosy chat with the referee, in the other they decided to use their role as lawmakers to get around the rules, the protection of our personal data, which was an inconvenience to their plans.

@Chris Hennessy
Nothing is illicit when your FG, Pilfering from the people even to the extent of putting revenue on to them to force a payment.

Well said Ronan.

Grossly disappointing seems to be this company’s motto!

I hope they clean water a lot better than they run accounts.

Mistakes will always happen. An exception to an otherwise excellent and efficiently run company.

@yfg account If you are going to attempt trolling, please learn the craft first. It needs to contain a masterful level of understanding, a craftsman like skill with the written word, and a certain level of competence.

Human error maybe!.

It would appear from many of the comments made about Irish Water,that there is a perception there, that it were set up solely to invade people’s ‘private data’ instead of a company set up to improve the water system already in place which is in dire need of being modernised.

Already my daughter, who lives in Limerick, has received a letter telling her that their house has a leak. She was given a number to contact to arrange for this leak to be sourced and repaired at no cost to her. The house is only 7 years old.

Is this not a positive? Are there any more positive comments out there? Is it not a positive that in 5 years or so we are going to have a fantastic new water service.

Maybe positive comments have to be a bit more thought out and not just ranting all the time..

I am sorry , but do you really believe that we are going to have a fabulous new water infrastructure in 5 years time, courtesy of Irish Water?

Based on anything I have read, be it financial or political, I just cannot see how the new infrastructure could be provided under the auspices of this company

I’m sure there are several accounts here that are actually created by the journal to stir up a bit of controversy!

It’s a bit lame to be honest. The above comment is one example I’d imagine.

I do Chris! And because I am trying to be positive someone thinks that I am a fake account set up by the Journal. Well not true. This is obviously not my photo or name but when I posted under my own name my FB page was being sourced by journal contributors.

I just enjoy reading the journal and making the odd comment but would never be bothered to entering into some of the offensive debates that go on here. And I am entitled to my opinion!

Potty – Fair dues to your decency and good faith !
Seeing as you want to pay this charge TWICE OVER – Would you care to pay mine too – because I have paid mine already through VAT & Motor Taxation already too ???

@Paul I am unsure of your point; I didn’t say there were no DP regs 10 years ago. But they are updated regularly to reflect the changing technological landscape (I think Oct 2014 was the last one)

Chris like I said I am not defending anyone but client databases are notoriously difficult to set up & administer, especially one this size when not everyone has provided up to date information. Doesnt matter who runs it and how much it costs, there will be mistakes like this. articles like this are playing on an emotive issue with non stories and take away from the real debate. This is Joe Duffy nonsense, I’d hope for better from the Journal to be honest.

You were paying for it through motor & vat. That money now goes elsewhere in the general taxation pool, and my guess would be used to pay for a pre election tax cut to give the impression you are better off. iw doesn’t mean water costs twice as much, it means you are taxed more for the same services

Padraig, thats apparently what they paid consultants for, remember. A database of the type utility companies need aren’t particularly difficult to design and implement, plus they were using bord gais’ experience as well. The issue is that they have tried to populate a database with information not given to them by people signing up to be customers i.e. chancing their arm.

Oh, and I worked as an Oracle DBA for years, so I know what I’m talking about.

@an c. I don’t want to pay anymore money out as I am a pensioner. But I just seem to get that this needs to be done. I am still paying taxes on my pension!

I do understand that there are many out there that do no have a penny left at the end of the week. I was there myself on more than one occasion! But I am confident that many people will have this charge waived if they genuinely can’t afford it. And I as a pensioner who has been paying tax for almost 50 years, do not resent this. Everybodies good and bad times come at different times.

They are using a number of information sources including the tv licence list held by an post, that is how bills are being issued to people long deceased, just don’t ring them to update as they deem this contact as having registered by the customer, oh and above all else, don’t pay the bill, you already have.

Were Jammin; sorry, I should have been more precise; not the physical db set up, I meant the populating & keeping the data up to date is the problem (and like you I have worked on this, both tech & data integrity, so I know).
And If you had ever worked with consultants, individual or the big companies, you’d be as unsurprised as me that it’s not perfect. As the saying goes,no one ever got fired for hiring ibm..

@ potty
Apologies.

I meant YFG account, my comment went in under yours!!

@ Paul

The revenue c of course!! Is IW a semi state body???

I am amazed that people believe that irish water was set up solely to improve our drinking water.I can not comprehend the stupidity of people.Water is the next gold I suppose.

I would love to know is how people are so confident that iw will be a success. Its a quango run by a man who has a dismal record. It has ex council managers . yet we are constantly being told that councils neglected the system for years. We have a quango in the HSE that’s a shambles because of mismanagement but yet we are meant to believe iw will be different. How?

His name and address is not “his data”. People need to get a grip

Also data protection does not apply to the deceased which is another unfortunate law.

No ….please no ….

God bless you potty ….I love your innocence….a company set up to cure our water problems that will cost more to set up than it would cost to solve the problem in the first place…..where’s the logic ?unless to creat a new stream of revenue for the government, at the behest of the IMF who certainly suggested this as a source of income …..you can forget the capped level of charge as this will certainly be dropped as soon as possible as the government has to make it pay …..do you really think that giving everyone 100euro to get them to sign up is realistic…..I don’t think so ….they are going to have to raise the charges considerable and when it becomes a profitable company they will then sell it to a private company, we will be told that the sale is required because we need the money to reduce our deficit or for more efficiency….either way we all know who will own it ….

@James – how much do you think it will cost to fix the water infrastructure of the country? I’m guessing you are thinking too small

Thanks Pedro x

@ James. That is all just speculation.

I could be thinking to small ….maybe you too are thinking to small for the set up charge of is…

Iw

@James – perhaps the moon is made of cheese. Come back to us when you have something useful to contribute to the debate

Does someone called justanothertaxpayer want to have a debate ….not with me …thank you….

Dream on. Irish Water was only set up to generate revenue and then to be sold off to the highest bidder, at the expense of the Irish people. They don’t care about protecting our water, they only care about making a profit. Sorry, but you’re completely deluded if you think that Irish Water has been set up for your benefit.

Gonna play Devils advocate here, but, this wouldn’t have happened if the lady had registered her property for the utility in the first place, which she clearly didn’t do. So I don’t feel overly sorry for her or anybody else in a similar situation. We’ll all be sure to milk the story though!

The point is , that this lady has what she feels are legitimate reasons for not wanting to engage with this utility company.
She did not register or accept a contract, and then receives a bill in her dead husbands name.
Somebody, at some stage passed the information which allowed a dead man to become a ‘customer’ of a private company, a company which his widow did not want to engage with

Thanks for demonstrating exactly the level of respect this government has for the Irish people. We already knew this. Payback on election day then you can yawn until you rot.

i just wonder, if all those extolling the virtues of this company have availed of either the extended deadlines for registration, or the 100 euro ‘conservation’ grant?

Two followers on Twitter Potty? Lame shill account.

She has made clear that after all of the various tax increases in recent years she has had enough so will not register. This is a recurring theme. The Govt. And especially Fine Gael has failed to reform, make more efficient use of our tax ‘dollars’. Plenty of scope there to reduce the defecit but the Govt. Has chosen not to take on this difficult task. The private sector in particular has been crushed (unemployment, wage reductions) wrt disposable income. Given the scale of the collapse the Govt. Has failed completely to reform public spending accordingly in certain areas and run a leaner service more in line with National income. Instead they have chosen to focus on revenue new/increased generating measures only which appear to be maxxed-out and people do not have more to give. Man Irish people have taken a huge hit not only in tax increases but also negative equity and these people are exhausted financially having lost over 100 000 euros in many cases on their homes which they work hard to try and pay every month.

Love Guinness has Zero followers on Twitter; count em- ZERO. Why might that be ? Hummmmm, help me here.

Agreed – so bloody what

I’d like to know what database they are getting names and addresses from?

@ bobs your aunt you worked for a bank! i would be keeping that to yourself but it does explain your insensitive comment!

Let he without sin cast the first stone…

@ann yeah like I said in the correspondence department…so I was one of the main culprits for the recession. Grow up and stop looking for arguments.

The revenue supplied them with the address database , I know this because the revenue have used an incorrectly spelled version of my address consistently despite being given the correct one , they and only they have this incorrect address so I thought , then IW used the exact same misspelled address to send our water info pack.

So you worked in a bank. …. lol

bob you aunt ooh i must have hit a nerve! i dont know whether you were or were not involved in the corrupt banking system ! either way enjoy the sun and curb the old anger!

She could have registered and avoided the ‘heartache’.
But no, better to wait and complain about someone mentioning his name. I wonder, when long lost friends ask how he is, does she ring up the newspapers to express how she relives the agony?

Ok. Where’s the target?

Is it too much to expect that Irish Water starts off with the same standards expected of other established companies? You’d expect the consultants working for them would be experienced enough to catch this in their processes, no?

Im 100% against IW & I also recognise that this is what is known as a “Straw Man” Fallacy. Nevertheless im giving it a thumbs up.

Martin, half a million marched, by your maths, how did you reach this figure?

Lets be generous here and assume you only include the 3 marches you attended, that averages at 166,666 people per march, now I don’t think that many made any march, so lets assume 100,000 march each time, that leaves more than 4,000,000 that did not march. Now using your maths let multiply that by 3, so that gives us 12,000,000 that didn’t march…

You are all about democracy, so 12,000,000 didn’t march – 500,000 did. Kind of says it all really….

Irish water the company that keeps giving. No end in sight of the mistakes they keep making.

I get items all the time for my brother whom died 10 years ago. Just bin them and forget about them, does not traumatise me… Sounds like she’s gearing up for a claim.

Martin, how is it insensitive? She didn’t register so they used the data that was available to them, which unfortunately included her husband’s name. It is of course upsetting for her, but hardly surprising or newsworthy. If she had registered this wouldn’t have happened. If it had been someone close to me I would have the same view.

Rory, how did IW come to have that data?

@Rory

Which data was it exactly that was made available to Irish Water? What system are they using to pluck names from that is obviously 7 years old, according to the information in this article?

Rory, you are insensitive for carrying it on. Also she is not lawfully obliged to go into a contract with IW.

land registry? property registration authourity? i’d say there are many ways available to get home ownership details. nothing sinister about that.

@Joey this is not a mistake , bills have gone out to other dead people with (RIP) beside the name. How can they expect to get paid from by a person that has passed away, The dead have no liabilities and how were they planning to extract payment from people who died years before this quango was set up. What was the point of addressing RIP bills to homes unless to stick the fingers up at the population and say look what we can do and get away with it. Irish water is tearing this country apart People now hate FG and Labour members. Honest hardworking People that have never been in trouble with the law in their lives are getting arrested and assaulted by the once trusted Garda. Respect for the Gardaí has hit rock bottom in every county in the country. All this for what gain………….? All to set up a company that can’t even cover the cost of sending out the bills, a company that will cost us hundreds of millions more in a time where our hospitals are falling asunder and carers for the chronically ill are cut to the bone … All because the government say we have no money for irrelevant extras like our health system. But Billions for IW… Fine Gael and Labour are prioritising Irish Water over the very lives of our sick men women and little children. The French stormed the bastille for similar reasons over 200 years ago, and If I was a Fine Gael td I’d be keeping one eye of the railings of Leinster house in the coming months because the people won’t take being ignored and abused much longer. Start putting the people first by getting rid of IW or get the hell out.

well said @Martin!

So Martin if Electricity/gas/tv/phone companies and banks did the same (which they do every single day) we should see constant one pagers on their mailing mistakes too???

@Joey Electricity/gas/tv/phone companies all require the establishment of a contract IE: The customer initiates the contract or agrees to one voluntarily from a sales rep or online. So the company would have been supplied with all the relevant information by the customer. Can you tell me how would that company then send out a bill with RIP on it ?????????????????

Your reply just shows you can’t really defend this disgraceful procedure of purposely billing the dead without omitting the facts. They wrote RIP on the bills what utility company on earth would target the dead as a revenue stream??

Martin the point of this article is that an automated mailing list sent incorrect mail. Only reason it’s news is because irish water did it. You are taking the journals bait for an opportunity to bash irish water and work away .. I’m not going to debate with you on that because our opinions don’t match …

@Joey I am simply trying to point out you are wrong !!!. What automated mailing listing system on earth includes an (RIP) variable option for its customers. None I can tell you this because I develop software of all kinds including database mailing lists and I have never had to include a variable for the dead. Letters and bills are sent by accident but the fact that IW have already been found guilty of sending out Bills with (RIP) on it negates your argument that sending out bills to the dead by IW was a mistake, It clearly is policy to do just that. for whatever reason. Accept you are wrong on this and win yourself a little respect.

Martin you are missing my point completely. What happened here be it mistake or not (leave that upto personal opinion) .. My point is why is this news?

Because Irish Water is topical, current and always news Joey!! If the ESB were as controversial as IW then something like this would also be news. I’m not sure how I could be missing the point completely when this was your original point:

” These are automated mailing lists and mistakes happen ”

I think I have proved it was not a mistake ….You can’t change horses mid race Joey.

Martin, if its not a mistake, are you implying IW sent a bill to a deceased person on purpose?

Except the house is in her name for the last 8 years . so how did iw get it? So it could not have been any of these. So since it was none of these. Where did they get it?.

News outlet covers story on controversial company shocker Joey…

Maybe post a letter through the letterbox of your nearest neighbour who has lost a family member and write RIP after their name. See how you get on with the response.

It does not happen loads.

Why would any rational person willingly sign up to this scam?