Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

From my understanding, depending on the outcome of this committee and the deliberations of the Government, Irish Water is considering returning to the application for the off-balance sheet status in 2018 or 2019. There are two issues connected to that.

When the Department of Finance representatives came before the committee some weeks ago, Deputy Murphy asked them a question on EUROSTAT. One of the reasons it gave a negative reading to the first application for the market corporation test was that there was a mismatch in the relationship between the revenue generated by the cost of domestic charges and the borrowing requirements in the plan for the capital investment programme. The consequence of that is that in order to get to an off-balance sheet position by 2018 or 2019 a higher rate or projection of a future higher rate of domestic water charges would be required. Is that the witnesses' understanding or interpretation of that bit of the market corporation test failure?

The capital projections for Irish Water sit around €500 million until 2019, but from 2019 to 2021 they increase significantly to between €770 million to around €900 million each year. If Irish Water, irrespective of what happens with water charges, remains off-balance sheet post-2019, is it the view of the witnesses that it could meet those capital projections within the existing borrowing envelope of the State in order to comply with the European Commission's fiscal treaty rules?

I have one further question for the Department.