THE cost of a Christmas drink in Co Longford will not increase even though the councils have decided the pubs must face a new annual water charge of £200.
The charge was agreed by the county council late in December to raise money for local services in the county and a councillor and publican, Mr Peter Kelly, voted for the new tax.
Earlier this week, Mr Kelly, once a close adviser to former Taoiseach Mr Albert Reynolds, said he had supported the proposal and the new system of water meters in the urban council area, which has been approved.
"The urban council was facing a financial crisis and Longford town is probably the last one in the country not to have a water charge," he said.
"The new charge will not be putting up the price of drink in the pubs in Longford. It certainly will not be causing a price increase in my premises," he added.
Earlier in the month, Longford County Council had brought in the new charge when it agreed publicans should pay £200 each for water usage.
Apart from this new tax on the publicans, county councillors made no change to existing water charges.
The county manager in Longford, Mr Michael Killeen, told urban councillors that Longford was the only town in the State which until now had no water charges.
He said some commercial premises were using water at over and above the average rate and the time had come to ask them to pay for water and also to conserve it.
He proposed that a charge of £1.80 per 1,000 gallons be charged, with a minimum charge of £100.
A flat rate of £100 would apply to all non-metered commercial supplies.
"Businesses like garages and hotel owners do not know how much water they are using in one week and you have a situation where hotels have cisterns automatically flushing every five minutes, 24 hours a day.
"These could be turned off at night and turned back on in the morning," he told a recent estimates meeting.
The town clerk, Mr Roibeard O Ceallaigh said there would be 130 premises in the town metered and 230 which would have a non-metered charge.