Dr. Paul McGowan:

We can address some of the questions. The data came from a data set based on actual meters installed on the Irish Water network. As I said to Deputy Paul Murphy, the data derives from quarter two of 2016. As to the households that were identified as having high consumption, the data set we have identifies whether those households have a leak. That is based on the fact that the meter has a leak alarm. During periods when one would expect there to be no water consumption, it will measure whether there is in excess of six litres per hour, or minute. I will correct it later. Basically, it will detect whether there is a leak. What tends to happen is that households with very high consumption levels tend to have a leak. As to whether that has been tackled, under the first fix free scheme, every household with a leak is notified and has the option of a free fix as long as the leak is between the outside of the dwelling and the meter. If the leak is internal to the dwelling, it is up to the householder to fix the leak.

It is too early for us to extrapolate in terms of what we anticipate the progress being over time. As part of our revenue control, Irish Water has submitted to us its expectation regarding leakage reduction over the coming two years. We will hold Irish Water to that in terms of the overall financial settlement we have given it. Irish Water has an ambitious overall target regarding leakage levels over time. The experience is that it takes a period of time to achieve the sort of economic levels of leakage that exist in mature utilities.