Mr. Jerry Grant:

The target is the end of the year. Clearly, that is not in our hands. There is talk in terms of demand expressed in respect of including litres. The bottom line is that when the water leaves the reservoir, it goes into the system to be used by consumers. Losses occur in every water system in the world and ultimately the only guarantee we have that people will have a standard of service is having enough water to meet their needs, whether they leak or waste it or not. At the end of the day, one neighbour has not got control over another and we certainly do not have control over the water once it passes through the stopcock and enters the property. We have made incentives available to householders and they have been successful to a degree. The bottom line is that the interaction with us of householders and businesses to save water and fix leaks is an ongoing challenge. We do it all the time and work on it every day. The water that is used by consumers is the demand we have to satisfy if we are to meet the level of service to which we have committed.

In terms of losses, we have a very clear view now, based on the best information we have on non-domestic and domestic demand, that 36% of the water is lost in the system. We intend to bring that down to 30% over the next four to five years, which is a 20% reduction in leakage. It is 6% of water into supply but a 20% reduction in leakage. Many of the figures that are being quoted here for leakage reductions are based on reducing leakage by some percentage. That is 20%, not 6% of leakage reduction if we look at metrics that are quoted for other water utilities. Our interest is how much extra water we save that is available at the plant. That is what we have been talking about. To get to 25% over the longer term will be a massive challenge. To this day, London is between 23% and 29% depending on the time of year, according to last year's figures. It has gone back to a point of intensified leak repair as its fundamental challenge at a much greater level. London is only one of many cities that are comparable in Britain. Glasgow, for example, has very similar water to Dublin. Loch Katrine and the Vartry system would have the same quality of water and the same corrosivity issues and they are over 30%. This is a massive challenge for our types of network, old cities with old and varied pipework. By the way, much of our problem also relates to new pipework laid by developers over the last three or four decades that was not laid particularly well.

The reality of pipe replacement is that it is very difficult and complex work. Deputy Ó Broin is absolutely right that in the centres of Dún Laoghaire, Blackrock and Dublin it is immensely difficult. That is where the cast iron is and it where the larger pipes and the larger leaks are. Back in the 1990s when a lot of work was done in Dublin, almost nothing was done in those areas because it was simply too difficult to face up to. That has to be addressed now by ourselves and we will deal with it. We will replace the pipes at a rate that makes sense to sustain the leakage savings we make through the leakage work that we do, just as they are doing in Scottish Water, across Britain and everywhere in the world. As I said, it makes no sense-----