Mr. Jerry Grant:

The directive places enormous challenges on us in terms of compliance and this has been recognised by the EU, which now recognises that it has all the legislation it needs. However, it has brought out a blueprint for implementation precisely because many countries, like Ireland, are struggling to achieve compliance. In 2009, we adopted a river basin management plan for the period 2009-2015 to be followed by other plans. Within the plan, we had considerable ambitions around water quality achievement and much of that has not happened because of the lack of funding and the fact that we have not been able to keep up with the programme. We are in some difficulty and a letter of formal notice issued to Ireland, which will result in fines without any action from our side. However, the Department has responded to Brussels and we have worked with the Department to put together a response to that along the lines of setting out a commitment we will make in terms of what is achievable and reasonable. This means making choices around schemes and discharges that will deliver the maximum benefit to the environment in the short term within what we can afford. Clearly, there will be an element of toing and froing on this but, hopefully, we will arrive at a position, although I cannot predict this, where we will have an agreed plan, which Europe can live with and accept and which will represent our best endeavour to meet compliance. It is certainly a significant risk for the country at the moment and the key to it will be that we set out a plan that we intend to deliver and then deliver it and live up to it.

There is a second piece to that around how we engage in the drawing up of future river basin management plans because there is a new plan to be developed up to 2021. It is important that we have all the objective information on catchment water quality to put the right measures into that plan rather than setting standards that are unnecessarily high. Clearly, we have the objective of good water quality but it has to be conditioned on what is proportionate, what is the cost of compliance with a particular standard and what standard will be required to meet the objective. Irish Water can bring a lot more information, evidence and technical engagement with the EPA to that discussion and that will be valuable in saving costs that would not deliver the benefit.

There is a good deal of discussion around rainwater harvesting and clearly it has some potential and it can be incentivised both by grants and the opportunity to reduce costs for water. The difficulty is that it is probably only practical on the basis of incorporation into new builds because it would cost a lot to retrofit such a system in existing housing stock and, therefore, the take-up of rainwater harvesting is likely to be relatively slow and likely to make a relatively small impact. However, I would like to confirm that we have engaged with schools and are getting involved in a schools information programme, which is important. We will also have a great deal of other information coming through in terms of water conservation in the home, tips on best practice and so on. The Deputy is correct that in the context of bringing in charges, we hope to get a dividend of at least a 10% reduction in household water usage and that will make an important contribution to meeting requirements and will allow us to defer investment we would otherwise require in the coming five of six years.