Mr. John McCarthy:

When we look to the longer term, what we are endeavouring to achieve with the water reform programme is to get Irish Water to a situation where it funds capital investment from sources other than public investment.

Obviously, this will be a transitional process and at present, Irish Water is at an advanced stage in preparing a business plan for the period to 2021 that will look at its investment profile, its financing profile and, most important, its operational efficiencies. These amounts in effect are for capital investment but one would expect that over time, these amounts should scale back as Irish Water increasingly sources finance from external parties.