Irish Water says it is putting a protocol in place to destroy PPS numbers it received in recent weeks.

The government decided to scrap the requirement for people to give the company the information, after it provoked major public controversy.

Over one million numbers had been submitted before the plan changed.

In a statement to the Irish Daily Mail today, the utility says it is making arrangements to remove them "in consultation with the Data Protection Commissioner".

Thousands of people took to the streets of Dublin, Cork, Galway and Limerick at the weekend, calling for the charges to be scrapped altogether.

Another mass protest is also planned for December 10th.

It comes after the former Fine Gael leader Alan Dukes said the government had made a "God awful mess" of Irish Water.

And it was revealed that the utility has paid more than €5m in legal fees to three Dublin law firms since it was set up last year - a weekly average of over €81,000 per week.