Ms Maria Graham:

I will answer the questions. A range of policy issues have been raised by Deputy Butler that the committee must consider. I will deal with some of the technical and financial issues around that. As I mentioned earlier, the amount of funds collected was €165 million. There would clearly be some costs involved, transactionally, in refunding that. Deputy Butler mentioned two options. A tax credit would involve work for the Revenue Commissioners and a refund of bills would involve work for Irish Water in terms of raising cheques and contacting people. Some funding would be required in either scenario. In terms of making the refunds, obviously with the passage of time one has to contact customers, as people will have moved house and, sadly, others may have passed on. There will be a range of issues involved in giving the money back.

In terms of tax credits, obviously there is not a link between Irish Water payments and the Revenue Commissioners at the moment so it would depend on whether that was a matter for individuals to show their bills and get a rebate through that system, because there is no linkage and there is no sharing of information. The PPS numbers were destroyed.

The third issue that was raised related to the water conservation grant. That was an entirely separate system that was run by the Department of Social Protection on our behalf. We did get information transferred on people who were registered with Irish Water, namely, customers of Irish Water and non-customers of Irish Water, namely, people on group water schemes and with wells. That customer information was transferred but there was no link between whether people had paid bills or not because the system did not recognise who the water supplier was. That is a point of which the must be aware in terms of making refunds against the water conservation grant.

A proportion of the water conservation grant was paid to people who were not Irish Water customers in the first instance. We do not have visibility on the people who received the grant, who were Irish Water customers, and whether they paid the bill or not.