Mr. Liam McCarton:

Yes. Deputy Stanley is quite correct about dual-flush toilets. Water efficiency and management would be the first layer in our permit. It is looking at it as a coherent whole. It involves not taking any one item in isolation but trying to look at a strategy where each one has a value starting with the simplest, which is water efficiency measures. These measures can have a significant effect on their own.

I forgot to address the cost of the harvesting system, which was also mentioned by Deputy Stanley. The typical cost for the off-the-shelf one that we used in Currow was about €6,500 or €7,000 and about another €2,000 for insulation. I will give a very practical example of the innovations. One I installed recently cost less than €1,000. That is simply because, as I mentioned earlier to the Deputy, there has been no innovation in technology. We have published a number of studies looking at tank sizes. Tank sizes are very over-designed for what we want to use the water for. Pumps are quite over-designed. There are significant cost savings. It is strongly recommended that two working pilots be looked at in respect of cost savings to the supplier and producer and the innovations that are required. We feel strongly that the costs of the system for a new build could easily be brought down to less than €1,500. There are also innovations within retrofit.

The Deputy mentioned the header tank. We did not want to go into too much detail in the introduction but there was only one possibility with the system the Deputy saw up there. One of the systems I have put in has no header tank in the attic so there are possibilities where one pumps directly to the point of use. There are pros and cons associated with that. The advantage of having a header tank is that if there is electricity failure, one still has flushable water from the gravity system. Issues can arise if it is pumped and the pump fails or there is an electrical failure so there are pros and cons associated with it. The Deputy is quite right. Current costs for systems are prohibitive in terms of any real viable strategy.