Mr. Liam McCarton:

It was interesting that Senator Naughton raised this project. The total capital costs of the water harvesting infrastructure in the school in Carrowholly, Westport was of the order of €7,000. It is an example of very good innovation because the system has no pumping costs. It has no large underground tank. It is different from a domestic system. It is a simple, low cost system with a small storage tank that supplies the toilets only. Obviously the advantage for the school is that there is no ongoing maintenance and servicing costs.

In our opinion current systems, in particular for schools, would appear to be over-designed for their function. As a consequence, costs are incurred by the school in ongoing maintenance and charges.

In our introduction we refer to education reform. The Senator also mentioned waste management. I worked in waste management back in the 1990s and I remember the programme of transformation. A significant level of waste management can be done in school, particularly at the primary level. The school in Carrowholly, Westport is incorporating the rainwater harvest project in the curriculum.

Our drive would be to minimise costs to the householder. There are environmental reasons also, but if I was asked for one reason that households should install water conservation technologies, the reason is to minimise costs to the householder. Let me give some examples. In Germany the installation of these systems have a pay back of between three to five years. The Senator also asked about grants. In Belgium, there is an edict that all new houses, by law, would have rainwater harvesting tanks. In Germany, they have a rain tax that is calculated on the size of the roof. If one has the capacity to harvest rainwater, one gets a reduction of this tax, so it is an incentive.