Mr. Jerry Grant:

I will come in on a couple of points. The business plan was adopted in late 2015. In 2016 and 2017 we did a good bit of work on potential options under regional service level agreements and that type of structure. There were many legal, implementation and structural barriers to those which suggested that the complexity of such an organisation would not result in significant benefits. That ultimately led us to the conclusion that the track that had been followed by Scottish Water and Northern Ireland Water was the only real option to get the kind of integration of service delivery that is needed both for the performance efficiencies and the cost efficiencies.

On service, it is important to emphasise that utilities deliver the best outcomes through what is called the asset management approach to managing services. That means that the day on which one invests in something is the day on which one commits to maintaining it and operating it optimally. The best way to do that is to have the two services integrated. That was one of the big gaps previously. We have tried to close that gap but it is impossible to close it fully without having control over both services. One must also develop the expertise required on a regional basis to support local operations. That is why services will improve and have to improve under that kind of a regime. There are also lessons to be learned from many of the incidents which we have had around the country in terms of the avoidance of issues, the management of critical assets and so on and these lessons will improve service. Of course, we have a long way to go with our assets and we will continue to have incidents.

As I said, the "design, build, operate", DBO, model was brought in for the purposes of delivering these sophisticated plans and maintaining them in the absence of the utility capability. We will not exit the DBO contracts overnight or immediately. All of our new DBO contracts are short-term operational contracts so they are very flexible. Many of the older ones have very limited break clause capacity or no break clauses at all, so there could be significant commercial implications in seeking to terminate them. At the same time, it is important to say that we need to develop the mature capability of the utility before we will be in a position to take them over. However, as I have said, we have very flexible arrangements in all of the new contracts whereby we can take them back into direct operation relatively easily.

On the European Court of Justice case, there are still 37 schemes on the list involved in the case. We are working through a programme in that regard and it is going according to plan. Ringsend is the single biggest example of that and it is still on track for 2021. It is our ambition for those schemes to be compliant by 2021. Obviously we pass information in that regard on to Government which passes it on to Europe.

On the Shannon water supply project, the imperative for that project grows more acute by the day. The growth of demand in the greater Dublin area and issues in the midlands, such as the serious drought issues in Mullingar last year, make a compelling case for that project to be delivered at the earliest possible date. We now have a preferred scheme. We are very clear on that. In April we will publish a report on the consultation process and all of the very valuable feedback we have received. Some recent articles have been very misleading and misinterpret an awful lot of information. Some 40% of the water resources of the Liffey currently go towards meeting the needs of the greater Dublin area. It is at its sustainable limit. If we had a critical dry period the greater Dublin area would be in serious trouble.

Our demand profiles are now aligned with the national planning framework. We have to meet them. We have laid out the peak and headroom allowances which any normal utility would have in order to ensure that it can deliver service. We have nowhere near that level of margin at the moment. We are on a very tight leash as far as that area is concerned.

There has also been some very misleading information or misinterpreted data circulated on leakage. Leakage in the greater Dublin area is at a rate of approximately 36% or 37%. That is about 200 million litres. That is a massive challenge. To save 40 million to 45 million litres of that leakage will require a massive effort. We are committed to that. We are working through programmes which include replacing 70 km of mains in the greater Dublin area. We are also looking to develop a very intensive find and fix programme. We have already implemented pressure management to the limit of what can be done without compromising service to customers in the greater Dublin area. Getting that 40 million to 45 million litres net saving at the plant will mean fixing two, or even three, times that amount of leaks because an awful lot of it goes back to suppressed demand and other leakage. Obviously the natural increase in the rate of leakage is quite significant in an old network.

There is no quick way out of this other than to build a new scheme that will secure the future supply. That is the Shannon scheme, based on water being abstracted at Parteen and piped to Dublin. The timing of that scheme is contingent on us being able to provide the planning documentation to An Bord Pleanála. The updating of the abstraction legislation is being addressed. We would like to be able to make the planning application in the context of that new legislation. We aim to make that submission in early to mid-2019. We are then looking at as fast a programme as possible in order to get work started on site by 2021 and to begin delivering water to the greater Dublin area and midlands by 2025 at the latest.