Mr. David O'Connor:

I will address the Irish Water issue. The first thing the county and city managers did at the very beginning, when the Irish Water initiative was published, was to establish an office to represent us all collectively. The creation of this new national utility is a huge undertaking of itself, so the collation of information, and the representation of all of the councils together in one place, was a vital piece. I am currently looking after all of that work and the constant negotiations.

Both Deputy Cowen and Deputy Stanley mentioned the service-level agreement. Basically, what will happen is that for a 12-year period the service-level agreement will be put in place whereby the local authorities will provide a huge proportion of the services they currently provide. In regard to Deputy McLoughlin's point, there is no danger of people within the existing system being moved out of it for the 12-year period because that was negotiated at high level with Government. That remains a fundamental part of the draft service-level agreement that is on its way through. There are many other associated issues concerning, for example, the funding of how we will run our water services during the period when we are, effectively, the agents of Irish Water. That is currently undergoing detailed negotiation and is extremely complicated, to say the least.

With regard to Deputy Cowen's questions, I would love to be in a position to help him. At present, there are at least four meetings going on around the country on a daily basis, every day, gathering the kind of information the Deputy is seeking in order to make a determination as to what are the overall priorities. The Deputy is correct there has been some very significant investment in water infrastructure but the demands for it are extraordinarily high. The Deputy has heard the kind of figures that are being talked about for Dublin and the cost of perhaps bringing water from the Shannon and all of those kinds of large projects. Those are inescapable facts and many of them are associated with environmental performance and oversight from Europe as to the way we perform in this regard.

Another element we must bear in mind is that Irish Water, even for its own purpose, may not have the ultimate say on priorities. That is due to the structure of the current system, which dictates that the energy regulator will become the regulator for water and will determine the price of water.

As members will know, the purpose of Irish Water is to establish an entity that has the capacity to raise money to feed a much-needed investment in water services. All of our water bills will be determined by the energy regulator. One imagines that the regulator will examine value for money and will determine the level of investment and prioritisation of investment around the country. Not even Irish Water can do that for its own purpose, although it might produce its priorities.

I imagine that environmental compliance is a high priority because we are in danger of being fined if we do not comply. Apart from that, discretion will move to the regulator. We are anxious that the regulator will have an awareness of local issues, regional issues and economic development. We have worked to ensure that happens. Those are the important issues that keep the show on the road. Local authorities have kept the show on the road for a long time by always being able to respond where individual initiatives arise - for example, bringing an industry to an area or developing an area in order to ensure an appropriate level of services. That connectivity of decisions needs to be sustained into the future, but that is a highly complex area. Unfortunately, I am not in a position to enlighten the committee much further. All I can say is that as it becomes apparent, we will all get to know the priorities.