John Lahart (Dublin South West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The previous Government's original solution to this was to cut people's water down to a trickle and that is one of the reasons we are facing this. I am interested in the excessive use of water. Scottish Water told us that they do not encounter excessive use or, specifically, wilful excessive use. I wonder how one can charge for unintentional or unconscious excessive use. If there are still so many leaks in the system much of the excessive use could be down to those leaks until they are identified. One would not be able to identify excessive use in apartment complexes, which means that one would end up penalising one part of the population. Some statistics in the commission's report showed that water usage per head in Ireland is quite low by international standards, which is an important point. Excessive use, meanwhile, is tiny at 6%. Yet we are focusing on all these measures.

I think the Public Water Forum is out of touch. I am glad that Professor Collins's last point was about trying to reach into the community to see what issues individuals face. The obvious ones are medical and the use of swimming pools, which are easy to identify. One just has to knock on doors. One of the points that arose for me concerning household charges, was that thousands of grandparents now provide full-time preschool care for their grandchildren. In the middle of the furore, older people asked me if they would still be able to look after their grandchildren due to household charges. There are so many variables in this matter.

The original proposal contained an allowance for children but no allowance for over-18s. We are getting into a complicated area given the number of over-18s, and even over-25s, living at home with their parents. God knows how long it would take to analyse the extent of this, but I would like the witnesses to comment on that.

What is the estimated cost of pursuing non-payment and has that bill been considered? What information is available on the per household subsidisation of water supplies for group water schemes?