Colm Brophy (Dublin South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

A number of the questions which I had have already effectively been dealt with so I will not go into them. I will focus particularly on one thing, namely, the funding of water. I presume it is the documentation, but can Ms Graham give me the figure? If the State becomes the sole customer of Irish Water, what will the State's bill for becoming the sole customer be? That to me is the key figure. There can be all types of arguments about what is net this, net that, taking out grants and taking out this, that and the other, but if the State becomes the sole customer, the State will have a bill. At the end of the day, unless I am misinterpreting somewhere along the line, if we pay that bill as a water charge, that means the State does not have that money to spend on other services, teachers, doctors, hospitals or whatever. We make a choice. If the State becomes the sole customer, can Ms Graham tell me what its bill would be per year?