ENVIRONMENT MINISTER ALAN Kelly has said that 2 February isn’t a “drop dead” date for Irish Water registration.

However, he did recommend that people return their water packs by next Monday in order to get an “accurate” bill and guarantee they receive the allowances to which they are entitled.

“It’s not a drop dead date as regards registration, you can register on 3 February, 4 February, 10 February.”

Kelly told reporters this afternoon that about 1 millon packs have been returned to Irish Water to date, although not all of them are from customers. He said a ”tiny, tiny, tiny amount” were not filled out or had remarks such as ‘not paying’ written on them.

As of 18 January, a total of 552,587 meters had been installed across the country: about 1,000 per day.

Kelly said that legislation dealing with how tenants in local authority housing pay water charges will be debated in the Oireachtas in the coming months.

Electoral reform

The minister was speaking at the launch of the government’s consultation paper on establishing an independent electoral commission.

It will examine the present system of electoral administration and its costs, and look at issues such as e-voting and other changes to the electoral system.

The commission is not expected to be in place in time for the next general election, but should be up and running before the local and European elections in 2019.

One thousand water meters are being installed every day (but progress has slowed down)

Have you registered with Irish Water? Almost half of those liable haven’t