Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

However, there is also the question of rolling out metering to a greater number of households. Let us consider that for a moment. According to the Irish Examinerof 5 January last, the Minister said that he expected the free water allowance per adult to be agreed by the Dáil to be 123 litres per day, or a little more. I do not know how the Minister knows that, but we will leave that aside. The document sent to us during the week for this meeting, the response to the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services, contains a graph on page 10 regarding the consumption levels per number of leak and non-leak households per day. If one takes a figure above the 123 litres - this ties in with metering and the costs relating to metering - and pitches it at 130 litres, for example, one will see from the graph that a majority of one-person households would still pay a charge, a little more or a little less than 50% of the two-person households would pay the charge and there would be a lesser number for the three, four and five-person households. On the issue of costs, it appears from those figures that it is really only viable to roll out the metering programme in its entirety if Irish Water opts for something like that. The proposal of the Minister, Deputy Coveney, would mean that somewhere north of half a million households in the country would continue to pay the water charge. Will the witness comment on that as it relates to meters and the operating costs of the meters? Does the witness agree that, on the basis of 123 litres per person per day, a relatively large percentage of the population would continue to be asked to pay water charges and will he give an estimate of the number of households that might be? Am I correct that it would be more than half a million households on the basis of the proposal of the Minister, Deputy Coveney?