Mr. Patrick Harkin:

It is an increase from €126 to €200 based on a 35-year-old fee from 1988. At the moment, there is no houseboat mooring permit on the canals. We want to bring in legislation so that people are legally issued with a houseboat permit, as is the case in other countries. We are operating off an old permit from 35 years ago that does not say "houseboat" on it. We would like to be in a position to start increasing our services so that people can legally live on houseboats along our canals with proper services such as sewerage, water and electricity. There will be a fee associated with those houseboat permits and the fee for the rural serviced area is proposed to be €1,500.

We did not just pick that figure out of the air. We have looked at this for a considerable period. We employed KPMG, which carried out an international analysis. In countries such as Scotland, the fee is set at 40% of the cost of renting a two-bedroom apartment in that location, while in England it is 47% of the cost of renting a two-bedroom apartment in that location. When we took those figures with KPMG, the figure for Sallins or Castleknock is €3,500. We feel that is too much. We are very conscious of the cost of living and the housing crisis so we have gone with a considerably lower figure - less than half.