John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister's comments on long-term leasing because I have always argued for that, not as a replacement for permanent delivery but as an addition. A version of the long-term leasing is the repair and lease scheme, which has been hugely successful. He has seen the biggest development under that, which was built in Waterford. It has 71 units for older persons in Manor Hill. The Minister was there for the opening of it. It is far better for people to be in a long-term, leased property for 25 years than it is for them to be in a HAP property or in a hotel room, and anyone who argues the opposite needs to get their head checked.

I will touch on a few issues relating to Irish Water connections. It has been masked a little bit in the context of what we have done on the refunds. As the Minister knows, when people go into these older buildings and open them up, viability is the biggest challenge they face. That is why the likes of the repair and lease scheme has worked well. However, I am dealing with a project at the moment in Waterford city, which is the conversion of a former pub. There was one water and one wastewater connection to that building. There was bed and breakfast accommodation above and a full public house on the ground floor. It has been converted into eight apartments. I can understand that seven new water connections are needed for the provision of the water but the owners are being levied €27,000 in wastewater charges even though they are not actually going to have another wastewater connection and the capacity is going to be reduced. If we think about it, there was a public house and a bed and breakfast accommodation operation and now there are eight individual operations. That is a viability problem. I have raised this with Irish Water at the committee. Its officials are saying they are bound by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities that oversees Irish Water but that is a problem. It is a problem in bringing those brownfield sites back into use. In fact, nothing is required in addition and, therefore, nothing is being provided for that €27,000; it is just an extra levy on delivering those much-needed units in a city centre site. Will the Minister commit to taking that away or who will commit to examining that? It is a problem. I have raised it several times now. It has been masked as a result of what we have done in the past 12 months but it is a problem.