Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will summarise the last point on Irish Water and I will come back to aggregation after Deputy McFadden has an opportunity to speak. In 2014, the subvention from the Department was €439 million and there is a direct contribution from the Department of Finance from the Central Fund of €185 million, which is a total of €624 million, and there were loans from the National Pensions Reserve Fund of €104 million. A total of €728 million was transferred from the taxpayer to Irish Water in 2014. A sum of €250 million had gone the previous year by way of a loan. The figure for this year is the subvention of €399 million and a stray contribution from the Central Fund of €222 million, which is a total of €621 million. Now the witness tells us we must add €59 million under a different subhead, which I did not have. There are also loans this year from the National Pensions Reserve Fund of €96 million. That is a total of €717 million, excluding the €59 million. Next year, the subvention already pencilled in is €479 million and there will be a contribution from the Central Fund of €184 million, which is a total of €663 million. There will be a loan of €56 million from the local government fund in 2016, bringing the total to €719 million. From 2013 to the end of 2016, the taxpayer will have put €2.5 billion into Irish Water.

What conversations did the Department have with EUROSTAT and the Central Statistics Office, CSO, the local agent of EUROSTAT, as to whether this could be treated as off-balance sheet given that the vast majority of money that will go to Irish Water in each of those years will be taxpayers' money rather than income generated from water? Has the witness had a discussion with them? Has the conservation grant been included in that figure?