Mr. Jerry Grant:

The business plan sets out a target figure of €1.1 billion for total operational savings, with capital savings of €500 million to be achieved between 2014 and 2021. We are on track to deliver on the target for capital savings. On operational savings, our ambition is to deliver on the target, but we believe it is contingent on the movement to the single public utility within the timeframe. There is significant cost tied up in it, as Mr. Dempsey explained.

On DBO contracts, we have a strong commercial management team overseeing them. Many of them are 20-year contracts and we may well have difficulty if we did want to terminate them. We are really not in a position to do so now. It becomes very complicated if we have to introduce change or upgrade a plant in the middle of an operating contract. That is where issues of value can arise. As I said, we have a strong commercial management focus on them which has yielded savings in certain areas. We have terminated one contract recently, purely on value terms. We have to look at the individual contract in every single case and the cost of termination. I have no doubt that there will be situations where we will proceed in that way. Having said that, they are performing well. They are good contractors which are delivering good services. It is purely a question of whether we are continuing to achieve the best value we can.

On the Ireland 2040 plan, there is no question that meeting the needs of social and economic growth and progress presents a big challenge. There are two levels at which it is being addressed. In the areas where housing and economic pressures are greatest, the cities and larger urban centres, we are working with the local authorities to prioritise areas for development in order that we will be able to facilitate housing development, in particular. We are doing a reasonable job in that regard. There are times when we have to indicate that certain developments cannot be in service for 18 months or two years if there is significant infrastructure to be built. We have a major programme to get rid of bottlenecks in sewers, for example. We are working with the development community sector such as the larger housing developers. We have a liaison engineer working with each of the larger developers to try to ensure our plans will be kept in line with their timing requirements. It is not easy, but we are working hard to ensure that will happen. It can be more challenging in smaller communities where we do not have planned upgrades included in our programme. We are working to make minor capital improvements in some cases, particularly at sewage treatment plants, to try to get an extra 10% to 15% out of them. That has been very successful, but it is a challenge.

We will take a very important step during the summer when we publish the national water resources plan for Ireland. It will set out a strategy for sustainable drinking water production. It will examine the many abstractions that are probably unsustainable in terms of quality and the capacity to abstract in a dry period. We will look at how we will rationalise the system over time in order that we will get to a sensible number of schemes, going from 1,000 odd to something like 300 or 350. The plan will set out a proposition, subject to a strategic environmental assessment, in order that we will examine how we can ensure there will be sustainable, adequate water supplies everywhere across the country. I have touched on the position in the greater Dublin area and the midlands. Clearly, the strategy needs to be national. We will put it out for a public consultation process mid-year.