Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his reply. The cut in funding bringing the allocation down to €27 million will have a significant impact. The Minister said that one of the reasons for that is the transfer of responsibility for some of the network to Irish Water. There was rush in recent years for councils to take over responsibility for these networks. On 1 January next year will responsibility for all them have been directly transferred to Irish Water once they have a connection to the public network? Will responsibility for those schemes that were connected up to the public network directly transfer to Irish Water? What will happen in respect of the stand-alone group water schemes that are still not connected to the public network? Will a subvention be provided in respect of them. Will grants be provided towards improving those schemes? Many of those schemes have been built up and improved with grants and by the funding and efforts of the members. Will there be an entitlement to apply for grant funding in respect of those schemes?

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