Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I have already issued a directive to Government Departments telling them to stick with the plans we drew up at budget time when we agreed a set of policy initiatives for each Department. Some of those policy initiatives are now happening later in the year and others are not costing as much as was expected. That is delivering the figure. I am not planning at this point to deliver a directive to Departments to get them to identify certain amounts of money within their budgets to be used for these water-related purposes. As I said earlier, my understanding is that certain political parties, including the Deputy's party, have maintained a view that water should be paid for from general taxation and that investment in water infrastructure should be part of the expenditure that is funded from general taxation. I am sure the Deputy will correct me if I am wrong in this respect. If I am correct in my understanding of the view held by the Deputy and others, this is what it looks like. We have to make choices with the expenditure that is open to the Government on foot of what comes though from general taxation in order to meet the needs of our water system. I will stand by the principle that those who paid and those who did not pay have to be treated equally. Consequently, the fairest way to deal with this matter is to offer refunds.