Mr. John McCarthy:

I will take those in sequence. A number of the items the Deputy included are capital related expenditure for investment purposes and a number of them are loans that ultimately will have to be repaid. The critical thing is the market corporation test and the EUROSTAT point of view. We had no direct conversations with EUROSTAT; that is an independent process. The CSO is the relevant statutory body here. We provide any information the CSO requires to make its submission to EUROSTAT, and that process is ongoing.

What will be looked at is the extent to which Irish Water is considered to be a market corporation, and one of the critical tests in regard to that is its sources of revenue towards its running costs. The critical test in that regard is that the amount of funding for that purpose that comes from public sources cannot be greater than 50%. From that point of view, the projections are that that test will be satisfied on the basis of the subvention levels we have spoken about. It does not take into account the €130 million, which is the provision this year for the water conservation grant, because that is not an Irish Water-related-----