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

It can be funded in many ways - on balance sheet, as was done for similar multi-annual programmes in the past, or through a public-private partnership, as has also delivered in the past. The completion of such a programme could take three, five, seven or ten years. We do not know how long it will take because we do not know the exact extent of spending that will take place. I acknowledge there must be a spend but the Government should acknowledge the €5 billion spent between 2000 and 2011 that it has failed to acknowledge. It fails to honour the fact that it took place. There is more to be spent and there are difficulties, including leakages of 40% that need to be reduced to 20%.

The water quality tests must be put in place against any such investment. I have every confidence in consumers agreeing to a contribution thereafter to the maintenance of an upgraded facility. The contribution would be one that reflects the consumer's ability to pay and rewards conservation measures. The Government said from day one that this was about conservation. It has now proposed a system that will be reviewed in four years' time. Do Government Members remember, from their previous roles as councillors, that a condition of development being carried out is that water meters are installed? Those who have been awarded contracts for installation in recent months have taken them up and said they are obsolete. What guarantee can the Government provide in four years' time that what is in place now will not be obsolete then? Is there any guarantee? Government Members were well able to heckle earlier but now we cannot get a response to a simple question.

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