Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Tuesday, 28 September 2021

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government

General Scheme of the Water Services Separation Bill 2021: Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage

Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

The standards in respect of Irish Water as a company under the Companies Act 2014 are not changing but clarity will be given. This proposed Bill will provide the company with the ability to provide directly for the board, the chair and the CEO. The issue of the company being a commercial semi-State has probably become a little bit of a hang-up. It means many different things in many different contexts. Therefore, the company will be subject to company law, but it will be constrained by all the other provisions in the proposed Bill that we have discussed.

The workforce uses the commercial semi-State pay model. Pay agreements are not subject to public sector pay agreements. There is no intention to change that aspect. However, the company does not have the traits we see in other commercial semi-State companies. I refer to constraints concerning its own funding. The company does not have an entitlement to raise its own moneys. It cannot borrow for investment in the domestic sector. It can only borrow for investment in the non-domestic sector, through the Exchequer, and that is very different from a commercial semi-State organisation. Irish Water is regulated by the CRU, and that agency sets the amount of money it can earn, in theory, but the company is subject to the context of the annual Estimates and budgetary process.

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