Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

There are no proposals for a new countrywide consolidated charge for water services. Each of the 34 city and county local authorities have financial and management autonomy in their functional areas, and will continue to operate individually, in the setting of water charges for non-domestic users.

The Government's water pricing policy envisages full and transparent cost recovery of water services supplied to the non-domestic sector. Cost recovery from the non-domestic sector is to be achieved by way of a consolidated, meter-based volume charge to be applied within the functional area of the relevant authority. I envisage that local authorities will have completed the metering of all non-domestic water users by the end of 2007. The effect of this will be to enable local authorities to measure the amount of water supplied to each non-domestic water connection, thus providing a transparent and equitable cost recovery mechanism for non-domestic water services in accordance with the polluter pays principle.

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