Mr. Paul O'Donoghue:

Consumers today will become our customers and have different expectations. We will be providing these services as a regulated utility and subject to the same codes, charters, guidelines and so forth that are imposed on Bord Gáis, the ESB and other energy providers in the State. We will be expected to publish our customer commitments and make promises to the public quite explicitly about how services will be provided, including, for example, about how quickly we will answer telephone calls, deal with complaints, respond to call-out requests and conduct work on a customer's property, including complete reinstatement and so forth. All of these will become published standards and harmonised in the sense that the same standards will apply nationally to all customers of Irish Water. We will deliver this over time and do so in the context of being a regulated utility. The CER will consult on all of these standards and set them out publicly. They will then be published on websites, in brochures and leaflets in order that the public will be aware of them. I do not doubt that, as with other utilities, the CER will then move to impose penalties and provide compensation where we fail to meet the required standards. If we make a public promise and it is evident that we have failed to achieve it, the public will have the right to receive compensation for not being provided with the service promised to them.