Ms Maria Graham:

By way of clarification, the €13 billion is over 20 years. In regard to the suspension of water charges, over the term of the business plan assumptions were made around levels of compliance which, as members will be aware, were rising all the time. As stated by Ms Fitzpatrick, in addition to the subvention, the Department would have given a working capital loan to Irish Water in recognition of the lag between billing and receipt of income. In terms of 2017, the working capital loan was €39 million and it was converted to subvention to address the gap between expected revenue-----