€2.5m on printing and posting
IRISH Water has spent more than €2.5m on printing and posting customer application packs all over the world.
The new utility company sent over two million application packs to prospective customers in Ireland and abroad towards the end of September.
The closing date for completion of the application packs was originally the end of October, but was extended to the end of this month due to the low numbers that had been returned.
To date, 869,000 application packs have been sent back to Irish Water, meaning roughly half still have not been returned with just two weeks left to the deadline. From next week the company will accept email and telephone registrations in a bid to speed up the sign-up process.
A Freedom of Information request by this newspaper has revealed that Irish Water spent almost €2.65m on the application packs, although this figure could increase.
A total of €977,000 was spent on the design, production and printing, while a further €1.67m was spent on postage.
Irish Water sent application packs to Irish citizens living in 130 countries around the world, including places as far-flung as American Samoa, Papua New Guinea, Kuwait and the Caribbean island of Saint Lucia. However, a spokesman for Irish Water could not give a breakdown on how much was spent on international postage.