Mr. Jerry Grant:

With regard to the ongoing investment programme, the transfer of live contracts from the local authorities is happening. These are all to continue. We are in the business of processing through to contract a significant number of projects to which the Minister committed funding and in respect of which contracts were signed or letters of intent to award contracts were issued prior to the end of the year. This is to allow them to proceed. We are not second-guessing them; they are all proceeding. This means a very significant amount of the funding available to us for the next two years, in particular, is committed to those projects.

The rest of the water services programme represents approximately €4 billion to €5 billion in potential projects, some of which were in the early stages of planning and others of which were at later stages. We are reviewing all those against the criteria we have set out for the evaluation of projects. We are determining whether it is possible to bring forward lower cost schemes in the shorter term that might allow us to defer certain projects. Quite clearly, we will not be in a position to fund work worth €5 billion or €6 billion in the immediate future. However, we must make a big impact on the non-compliance issues associated with drinking water and wastewater. To do so, we must come forward with asset improvement schemes that result in the greatest benefit for the money available.

Projects with contractual commitments are going ahead. Those without contractual commitments are under review by us. We take submissions, particularly from the capital offices of local authorities, which are working with us and feeding in their assessments of what is needed in their areas. We cannot afford everything and, therefore, we must make choices on priorities and use minor capital improvements in substitution for big projects where it will buy us some time and deliver a service in the short term.