Irish Water plans to cold-call thousands of customers who refuse to pay their bills in an effort to get them to sign up to payment plans.

The company will begin sending reminder letters after the second bills land through letter boxes from the autumn, and follow up with phone calls if there is no response.

The move comes as the utility revealed that less than half of its 1.5 million customers are paying their bills, or 675,000 households. It must secure payment from another 525,000 customers to collect some €271m in household charges by the end of the year.

Environment Minister Alan Kelly has insisted that the €30.5m collected to date, from a projected income of €66.8m, was a "good start".

Despite the lack of income from householders, Irish Water has secured a lending facility of €500m and is fully funded to operate and upgrade the network in the short-term.

However, experts have raised concerns about the low rate of payments, saying they will need to improve if the company wants to borrow money at competitive rates.

At least 80pc would need to pay to secure the best deals and lowest interest rates, economist Seamus Coffey said.

Irish Water told the Irish Independent it was "not going to be accused of chasing people", and insisted there was time for people to "get used to managing these payments".

Irish Independent