Mr. Michael McNicholas:

I knew the Chair would. Deputy Daly is correct. There is a view that €70 million was spent setting up Irish Water. That is not correct. We invested €70 million in building these eight utility systems that have delivered the efficiency, the service and the capital projects. The €70 million was spent on international experts, software engineers, hardware engineers and systems integrators, as in every other utility, to build those eight utility systems. The €173 million was the total cost of everything, from the design of the organisation, the set-up of the organisation, the definition of the processes, the creation of the organisation to putting these eight systems in place in order that a modern utility could be run and could take responsibility for everything that is happening nationally. No other utility has done anything of that scale for the same cost.

The €173 million benchmarked is €100 million less. For example, Thames Water in the UK took one of those systems and spent £150 million on it. From my own 35 years experience in utilities, I know one cannot deliver that level of software, that level of systems and that level of process without significant capital investment. The €70 million on those experts - they were international experts who do it for every utility - was necessary and, ultimately, was really efficient and delivered at the end of the day a national utility with the systems and processes which comprise a national asset. The committee has heard the regulator, not us, set out the efficiencies and the level of work we are doing to repair that infrastructure. We did not waste €60 million on consultants. We invested €70 million with systems experts and software engineers and hardware engineers. We delivered a utility, we delivered the systems and the processes in 18 months for at least €100 million less than any other utility could do it and we did it because another Irish utility, Bord Gáis, had that experience and capability. An Irish company built a new Irish company faster and better than anyone would do it internationally. I am stopping at that.