The Socialist can exclusively reveal that this years annual rates bills and next years water charges bills could in fact be illegal.

This dramatic twist comes after investigations by anti-water charges campaigners in the We Won’t Pay Campaign discovered that the Land & Property Service (LPS) cannot collect revenue on behalf of Northern Ireland Water.

Every household has been sent notice of their rates bill this year, which also contains literature explaining “In 2008/2009, as in previous years, the regional rate is used to help pay for our regional services such as the health service, education and water (including sewerage).”

Northern Ireland Water Ltd. (NIW) is owned by the Department for Regional Development, but exists in law as a private company. It has a monopoly on all water and sewerage services in Northern Ireland.

Yet according to Brian McClure, Head of Rating Policy at the LPS “LPS is not equipped nor are the necessary contractual and legal arrangements in place to allow it to collect revenues on behalf of a private company at this particular point in time.”

When contacted by The Socialist, nobody at the Land & Property Service was able to explain this apparent contradiction and instead suggested contacting the Water Reform Unit. It was subsequently confirmed by a senior official at the Department for Regional Development (DRD) that a major legal question mark now hangs over the legitimacy of this years rates bills which have been sent to over 700,000 homes.

It was also admitted that both the DRD and Department of Finance & Personnel have been jointly working on devising a billing mechanism for introducing water charges next April since last October but as yet have failed to come up with a solution which could get around this legal conundrum.

Northern Ireland Water was established in April 2007 as a transitional step towards the complete privatisation of the water service. It was designed specifically to be financed by it’s own independent water billing system. However, because of the mass support of a boycott of the charges built by the We Won’t Pay Campaign in communities across the North, the charges were postponed.

The We Won’t Pay Campaign is to investigate taking legal action against the LPS over the validity of the rates bills. However, the strength of the campaign has been the mass support built in working class communities against the introduction of water charges and privatisation of our water service and as such will continue to draw on this deep reservoir of support.