Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State, Deputy O’Dowd continued by saying, "However, the establishment costs are not voted Department expenditure". That contradicts what the Minister said on “Prime Time”. He went on to say, "Rather, they are being funded by means of a commercial loan from the NPRF". This is the kernel of the response: "It is not appropriate, therefore, to include details of those costs in replies to parliamentary questions". What is it all about? Was the Minister of State talking to the Taoiseach? Did he not insist? He did not. We have been trying to cover our tracks all week. We have been tripping one another up.

At the committee meeting to which the Minister referred when David McCullagh asked him the question about the funding of Irish Water, Deputy Kevin Humphreys made a point - like his Labour Party colleagues he is not here and they have not been here except when they contributed to this debate. He tried to intimate that at that meeting I and other Opposition Members did not query the process that had begun shortly before the meeting on 13 November 2012.

At that meeting, I said the following to the Minister:

How much must the Minister commit towards Irish Water next year? There has not yet been confirmation as to the cost, for example, of metering [let alone set-up costs]. When the committee met Bord Gáis [the previous] week ... the cost from its perspective was estimated to be €450 million whereas Deputy Stanley mentioned that a report of which he had sight [stated that] it could cost [up to] €1.2 billion.

Deputy Stanley will remember that.

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