Mr. Jerry Grant:

In 2013, before Irish Water officially came on board as the water services authority, the Department made provision for recovery of these costs to local authorities. In 2014 the local authority staff are obviously working for us under SLAs and we are meeting the cost of these repairs. These are leaks are in the system and we are happy to see them being repaired. The fact that they are being repaired gives rise to a greater level of water conservation.