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Save a thought for those answering the phones at Irish Water

Off the hook doesn’t quite cover it.

IRISH WATER DEALT with over 500 calls a day last year according to figures released by the semi-state.

The utility say they handled 114,000 calls from when their customer care centre opened on 28 April last year until the end of the year.

Excluding Sundays and Bank Holidays, it means that 508 calls a day, or 42 per hour, were made to Irish Water.

The figures were revealed as parent company Ervia announced financial results for 2014.

They showed that Irish Water suffered pre-tax losses of almost €139 million for 2014.

The losses comes as Irish Water took in €687 million in revenue last year but incurred costs of €793 million.

The income does not include charges to Irish households with billing being delayed until this year. The first household charges were originally supposed to come into force in October 2014.

Commercial charges do form part of the revenue.

It was revealed last week that less than half of the water charges owed to the utility were collected during the first three months of the year.

The annual report also says that the 539,000 water meters were installed across the country last year.

Read Ervia’s annual report in full >

Read: “This guy is a hero by any measure”: Irish Water honoured at lavish US awards ceremony >

Read: Ervia boss: “Even in Greece… they pay for their water services” >

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