Mr. Jerry Grant:

-----but I am explaining the benefits of it. I would not necessarily claim that 70 megalitres being saved in leakage reduction is sustainable at the level of 70 megalitres because leakage is a bit like washing up in that one has to do it all the time. Part of the difficulty with leakage up to now is we have hit on it sporadically but we have not sustained the effort. That is the real challenge and that is an important point to make.

On the question of excessive usage and of unmetered premises, that is certainly a difficulty. They fall into the category of premises that have to be dealt with through an operational process. We will from time to time find premises that are unmetered that have high usage and there are a number of options that can be taken. If it can be metered, a meter can be installed and that will bring the premises into the loop but sometimes it cannot be metered. Very often it is a complex or a shared service situation, of which we have many throughout the country, both with respect to accessing the backyard and some newer developments where mews buildings and so on have been tied on to one another. The metering programme has identified many of those anomalies. There is an issue around equity and there is no easy solution to it. In the case of apartment blocks, an aggregate allowance could be allocated for the block and the management company could be billed for that.

As far as billing and getting paid are concerned, that is part of the decision making process to be arrived at by the Oireachtas. Clearly, having the means to effectively collect money is crucial. If, for example, we took the 90 percentile figure and 10% were identified as the cohort above the allowance, there would have to be a process whereby they would be notified and given either one quarter or several quarters to respond to it. Based on the first-fix scheme, there is reasonable evidence that a reasonable number would respond to that. It is difficult to say what the final number billed would be but we can surmise that quite a few would take action on foot of a potential liability.