John O'Mahony (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Perhaps they have. Sinn Féin now states that it put off individual water charges to houses until after 2016, so does that mean that people in Northern Ireland will be paying water charges in addition to the sums of £1,200 and £1,500 they are paying at the moment? Clarity is needed in Northern Ireland as well, and I hope that when Sinn Féin debates this, it will clarify the situation.

The announcement today is welcome, but there is a need for further information as the year goes on so that people are clear about the situation.

A good suggestion was made to me recently which should be considered, that is, the putting in place of a facility to allow people to pay as they use water. In that way, people would not have a significant bill coming in every quarter. Such a payment option would allow people to have more control over the size of their bills. This suggestion was made to Irish Water but received a negative response. I ask the Minister to raise this matter with Irish Water again because it is an option that some people would take. As I understand it, next January a property tax bill and a water charges bill will arrive in people's homes at almost the same time. There is a need to stagger those two bills, particularly in the context of what is an expensive time for a lot of households, following the Christmas period. Some fine tuning of the bills is required.

As Chairman of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Transport and Communications, I wish to raise the issue of the post offices and the sustainability of the post office network. I welcome the recent announcement by the Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources that he will encourage all Departments to make as much use of the post office network as possible. The post office network has done a tremendous job with the passport service and with facilitating payment of property tax bills. I hope that the post offices will be allowed to deliver a water charges payment service to the same standard as the other services it provides.

I will conclude now by saying that while I welcome the clarity provided today, there is a need for continued clarity between now and January 2015.

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