Mr. Jerry Grant:

On the first category, it is a common feature of cities, in particular, that residential properties dating from a certain period have a common backyard service. These services very often have lead pipes that often are in poor condition. A fair amount of work has been done in starting to remedy such services. It is complicated and expensive work because one must put a pipe in the front and mould services to the back of the houses. Certainly over a relatively short time - it probably will take ten years - we hope to eliminate all such common services through a programme of work. As I stated, this will take out the issues of lead and leakages and is improving the service and in so doing makes such properties available for metering purposes. Clearly, they are not amenable to metering at present.

In respect of apartments and other multi-use properties, Irish Water has carried out some pilot work on the potential for the metering of apartments. It is a highly complicated task because buildings of different type and from different ages have all kinds of plumbing systems. For example, some apartment buildings have approximately three separate feeds to different parts of the system in individual apartments. A percentage of multi-occupation buildings have individual stop cocks at the front and can be metered. For the balance of such properties and beyond phase 1 of the metering process, we are looking at the options. It will be a matter of being able to fund and deliver the programme over time. Certainly, however, it is beyond the scope of phase 1.