A leading engineer has encouraged to government to restrict the installation of water meters to cities only, insisting that it did not make economic sense to install them in rural counties.
Ray Earle, a senior project manager with Dublin City Council, made the comments yesterday in his role as chairman of the World Congress on Water, Climate and Energy.
He insisted that universal metering would be a mistake both economically and environmentally.
He asked: “Is it fair that you would have the same roll-out of meters in Leitrim as in Dublin? Dublin needs a new water source; Leitrim has plenty of clean water and the cost of water production is low. You have to ask is it worth putting in all those meters in Leitrim?”
He added that while the government was committed to charging for water under the EU-IMF bailout agreement, they could make an argument that it makes little sense to meter those in rural areas.