Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will come back to those later. I will just finish this module because I think we are making good progress. From the CRU's point of view, could Uisce Éireann make a decision that, like ESB Networks, it would socialise half of the cost of putting this public infrastructure in the ground up to a certain distance, perhaps the 500 m that applies with ESB Networks? Furthermore, could it extend the 10 m to a longer decision? Was that Uisce Éireann's decision or the CRU's? We have to know who to chase because of the socialisation of the charge and the fact that this is public infrastructure that others can tap into.

Ms MacEvilly made a point. She is obviously way younger than I am but, while it is true the State does not give a direct subsidy to ESB Networks, when I built my house many years ago, it was 50% subsidised because there was a clear State policy to connect the country to electricity. There was much more control over State bodies at the time but that was a clear Government policy and we achieved it. That was for one utility. We are getting there on the broadband but we are not nearly there with water, which I will come back to later. We are totally failing on water. There was a clear Government policy to socialise 50% of the cost up to 500 m and we can be thankful it has survived into the modern era. I presume that covers the vast majority of electricity connections. Under CRU regulations and the various European regulations, which, at times, seem weird to me, would it be within the remit of Uisce Éireann to decide to go to X metres, a lot more than 10 m, and to socialise the rest of the cost on a 50-50 basis? I really look forward to getting the self-build proposals from the CRU and seeing whether they are pertinent to the ordinary individual building a one-off house. I do not like the term "one-off" house but I am talking about building a house in a dispersed settlement.