Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

The Government took the decision in 2011 or thereabouts to establish a new water utility under the aegis of Bord Gáis Éireann, as it was then. That company has evolved in that form since then. The Deputy will appreciate that there are certain services provided by the Ervia central group to both the Irish Water side of the business and the Gas Networks Ireland, GNI, side of the business. For example, there are shared services in the context of legal services, financial issues, ICT and so on. There will be a cost in terms of the separation project, such as separating out ICT systems, ICT contracts and so on. Much of the cost will arise in that regard. There will be an ongoing operational cost in respect of providing central services such as HR, financial and legal services to separate companies. That is a matter of which the Government was aware when making this decision because the view was that there were two significantly different businesses providing gas and water services with two different states of-----