Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the group for making the presentation. It was most impressive and useful. The main recommendation of the Expert Commission on Domestic Public Water Services and the duty of this committee thereafter is to find a funding mechanism to deal with the implementation of that. In recommending that the State become the main customer for provision of domestic use, it also, to inform Deputy Farrell, recommends and asks that we seek greater parity and equality for those who fund that from their own resources in addition to State help and assistance. That point has to be made. It is our duty and what we want to do. We want to get some information from the witnesses that allows us to be in a position to make a recommendation that can close that gap. It has not been closed in recent years, I would add.

I have some specific questions to help to do that. Has the National Federation of Group Water Schemes calculated the estimated cost per household of a group water scheme bill? In other words, what is the average bill throughout the country? Has it calculated that and can it be made available to the committee? How much would complete subsidisation of group water schemes cost per annum, to equalise completely with the public provision? What is the current average subsidy per group scheme from the State? How does that equate to the customer, the end user?

In other words, what is the average subsidisation in respect of each user? We will end up with subsidisation if we proceed along the road in respect of public supply and we did not compare that with existing subsidisation of the rural sector so that we can seek to address parity, if necessary. The agreement we reached with Fine Gael put a pathway in place to deal with this issue and allow the Government to continue to function so as to deal with many other pressing issues, as we saw last night, for example. Can the witnesses confirm that grant aid was reinstated when we suspended charges? Did it increase because a commitment was given that it would increase? As authors of the agreement, we need to know to ensure that what we were seeking at that time, namely, to ensure greater parity and equality, has been achieved. This committee has a greater responsibility to ensure greater parity and equality in the event of it making a recommendation to the Dáil for its acceptance.