Ms Cathy Mannion:

I will add a few comments. The service level agreements currently in place allow for a review after two years and another review after seven years. The starting point with Irish Water is that it has these service level agreements with the staff and the staff are much needed to carry out the work. We have to acknowledge that is the starting point. As Mr. Paul McGowan has said, we have looked at its costs and, acknowledging that this is where it is starting from, we have put some efficiency measures in place for the first three years. We plan to try for further efficiencies in place over that period in order that in the next review period, which will be six years after the end of 2016, we will probably seek harsher and more challenging reviews. We have to acknowledge that the starting point is the service level agreements and the good job that people are doing with Irish Water.

One other point was the suggestion that there should be some flexibility about the timing of billings to ensure they do not coincide with, say, the property tax. That is a reasonable point. We will speak to Irish Water to see if anything can be done to stagger these bills compared with, say, the property tax bills. On the issue of affordability, we consulted our handbook which has two or three pages setting out the requirements placed on Irish Water before it even thinks about a notice of reduction of supply. We have got many responses, particularly from organisations such as the Society of St. Vincent de Paul which has asked us to strengthen it further. We will do that. We will strengthen our handbook and look at the flexibility of the payments.