I used to commute to city centre by train from Portarlington. The 7:50am would have you in heuston before 9.00am most days and the 5.15pm would have you back in Port station just after 6 o'clock. Iarnrod eireann would not be my favourite people as there were often disruption to the services and the trains were very old, but apparently this will change thanks to their development plans.
I live about 10 mins from Portarlington, and there are two refuse services where we live, AES and Oxigen. AES is approx €25-30 a month depending on the size of bin and they collect every second week alternating with a free recycling bin collection.
There are no water charges as such, however it is a very hard water area as is alot of Offaly and Laois. We got a water filter system installed when we moved into our house which breaks down the limescale in the water coming into the house and then we also have a seperate 30 litre drinking water tank which is purified much further. This system cost about €1000 to install and then I think it's serviced once a year for about€50.
Hope this info helps