Ms Maria Graham:

Yes.

The Deputy's second question concerned the rural water sector. We would include about €1 million or so extra which we would use to continue to subsidise the sector. Regarding the rural water subsidies, in the rural water sector we give operational subsidies, but each group water scheme sets its own charging regime. We try in negotiations with the federation to get a fair subsidy that essentially reflects the circumstances at the time when there were no water charges and what would cover most of the water charges. The group water sector either gets water from the public system and then puts it through its networks or it has its own private sources. The subsidy in each case reflects the system used. Private users get the higher subsidies. The subsidies are €140 per household using a private system and €70 for the public system. We reduced the subsidies when domestic water charges were introduced to €95 and €40, respectively. The aim of this calculation was to bring people into parity. We brought the subsidies back up to their previous levels of €140 and €70 more recently because of the suspension of charges. These are the subsidy levels that broadly equate to those at the time when there were no domestic charges and the support the group water sector was getting.