Refunding the €162.5 million paid by domestic customers to Irish Water up to the end of the first quarter of this year would be a logistical nightmare, according to sources in the utilities sector.

Some Opposition parties have called on the Government to pay back customers if the charges, which are currently suspended, are abolished.

With people having paid by direct debit, cheque, cards over the phone, or by cash in the post office, the complexity of the operation would be enormous. It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to deal with cases such as where people had paid bills while renting, and had since moved on, they said.

"The bureaucracy would be enormous. It would be godsend for Liveline," one source said.

Fianna Fáil’s recent submission to the commission on water charges said if charges were abolished, then those who paid should be refunded. It said this could be achieved through a tax credit.

The Labour Party is opposed to the abolition of water charges, but says that if abolition proceeds, anyone who paid should be refunded the money. The party has published a Private Members’ Bill to this effect.

Affordable

During the general election campaign, Sinn Féin said those who had paid charges should not be refunded, but has since changed its position.

The party now says that because there is certainty on the cost of refunding the charges, it believes it would be affordable to do so. It has not decided whether refunds should be over one year or two.

Like Labour, it favours cash refunds, rather than tax credits.

Bills associated with 989,000 recorded domestic customers had been partially or fully paid by the end of March 2016. The total paid was €162.5 million.

The number of people who paid by direct debit varied over the period during which bills were being issued, but had reached approximately 20 per cent by the beginning of this year.

Stalled

While the percentage of registered homes that were seeing some or all of their debts being paid had been steadily rising, that trend stalled after the general election.

Irish Water collected just €18.3 million during the billing cycle of April and May this year, which covered services for the first quarter of 2016.

That compared with the €33.4 million it had collected for the last quarter of 2015.

The suspension of water charges was announced by the Government at the same time as the State-owned utility was issuing its bills for the first quarter of this year.

While Irish Water has data on bills being fully or partially settled, it does not necessarily have data on who actually paid the bills.

Dealing with situations where people have since moved address, or where there had been changes in tenants over the course of the period when charges were collected from rented homes, would make repayment very complex, the sources said.

Much of the bill-collecting work of Irish Water was outsourced to Cork-based Abtran.