Galway Bay fm newsroom – Galway County Council paid water charges on 87 unoccupied homes last year, while Galway City Council made 41 payments.
New figures show that most local authorities did not pay any water charges on vacant social housing units in 2015.
Irish Water’s charging regime requires the owners of dwellings which are not permanently occupied to pay a maximum annual fee of €125 for maintaining connection to water mains.
This also applies to vacant units owned by local authorities.
According to the Irish Times, as many as 4,500 council-owned social housing units across Ireland were vacant at some point last year.
However, Irish Water collected non-permanently occupied charges on just 174 vacant council units last year amidst disagreements over payment methods.
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