Sir, – I hope that the organisers of the anti-water charge marches tomorrow will keep an eye out for any rogue elements in their crowd. They should be easy to spot as they will be the ones carrying bottles of Ballygowan, Evian, River Rock, etc. – Yours, etc,
CONOR MURPHY,
Timoleague,
Co Cork.
Sir, – The controversy over Irish Water demanding PPS numbers would seem very strange to people living in Spain, where everyone pays for water and an individual’s personal ID number is used as the unique identifier for both each account and the person paying the bill. This causes not the slightest problem, as people are very accustomed to using their ID numbers (or passport numbers) for all manner of transactions and certainly anything to do with the State or utility companies.
It seems to me that the main complaint that one can have with Irish Water’s proposal is the risk that if the company is sold in the future, the PPS numbers could be used for some nefarious reason.
The simple solutions to that problem are to offer customers a choice between PPS or passport number as their identifier and to have a set of rock-solid data protection guarantees with severe punishments – particularly colossal fines – for any company that would breach those guarantees. – Yours, etc,
KIERAN McGRATH,
Valencia,
Spain.