Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Corcoran Kennedy asked a number of questions regarding local government. The commercial rate will be struck by the county or city authority, not by the municipal district. However, the municipal district members will be members of the plenary session when that happens, whatever municipal district they are from. If they want to have certain enterprise initiatives at local authority level, offhand I am not sure what discretion they will have in terms of commercial rates. There is nothing stopping these municipal districts or local authorities generally proposing these initiatives, as they do. For example, the bid scheme in Cork County Council is working exceptionally well, as is the bid scheme in Dublin city. These are examples of where the community comes into partnership with local authorities to advance certain enterprise schemes or develop certain enterprise initiatives. Arising from the changes we are making in local authorities, we want to see local authorities more to the front and centre in regard to enterprise, particularly in regard to promoting small businesses.

The Deputy mentioned the word "consultant" and I agree it was an unfortunate choice of words that did not tell the full story in regard to all of the start-up costs required for any public utility. We needed an ESB, we needed an EirGrid, we needed An Bord Gáis and we needed this public water utility. As I said earlier to Deputy Cowen, 90% of these costs will be assets of the company. These costs are necessary to have the asset management systems and for us to sweat down those assets in order to deliver good value.

Let me give an example. Shannon has a very bad situation in terms of wastewater treatment systems currently. Effectively, nobody can connect to the system there and if we wanted a new foreign direct investment to come into that area, it would be very difficult. Irish Water is looking at innovative ways to deal with this, at least temporarily, over the next five to seven years, with a low cost model, pending the new moneys that will come on stream in the future that will mean it can do a much better job. This is one of the new ways we can tide ourselves over, considering the fact the European Commission is considering launching a new infringement procedure in regard to 80 such plants, which is a concern.

The local community development committees which will be and are being established will be the partnerships between local authorities and the communities in terms of operating the local development programmes and new EU-funded programmes under the rural development programme. I expect that after the local elections in July, all of these committees will be in place. The timescale for the next round is early 2015 and we are working currently on the new plans to be submitted to the European Commission for approval, now that we achieved agreement in Brussels with the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, who is responsible for acquiring the funds for us for the rural development side, just before Christmas. We are working away at official level with the authorities in Brussels to fine tune the next round and we will come back to this committee to talk about the principles that should underpin this new round of funds. In regard to the European Regional Development Fund, we are also trying to include an urban based model so that we can accentuate some of the good work that is going on in the context of local development companies.

I can confirm for Deputy Humphreys that we will shortly set up the expert group on climate change and put in place the necessary arrangements and funding to make that happen. I will also make a statement soon on the progress we are making on the climate Bill. We will take into account some of the important issues raised in committee hearings when discussing the heads of the Bill.

In response to Deputy Flanagan, there was open competition for all senior management positions in Irish Water, including Mr. Tierney's position. He got through the interview panel and he has my full confidence and support for what he is trying to do. He has a very difficult job in setting up a new utility company, but there are governance arrangements in place for the board and he must report to a board whose members have good skills, including people with legal and governance expertise. He will report to these people. The chairperson of that board is Ms Rose Hynes, who was chairperson of Bord Gáis also and she has significant experience in terms of public accountability and governance arrangements in regard to any managing director.

I do not need to tell Deputy Flanagan about the situation regarding the water supply in Roscommon, as he is aware of the situation as he indicated in a colourful manner to the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd.