Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The Water Services Act 2013 provided for the establishment of Irish Water as an independent subsidiary within the Bord Gáis Éireann Group, now Ervia, and assigned the necessary powers to allow Irish Water to undertake the water metering programme. Following a tender process, the final cost of the metering programme was determined at €539 million. The cost reflects the outcome of the procurement process, taking account of the overall logistics of a programme of this scale and complexity.

The initial estimates of the cost of the domestic metering programme were based largely on the experience of the non-domestic metering programme, the group water sector and market soundings, as there was no precedent for a programme of this scale over a very short duration. We were not necessarily comparing apples with apples and oranges with oranges. The estimate was based on much smaller-scale projects than the national domestic metering programme and was not a definitive budget. As with all capital projects, estimates are refined as the detailed technical scoping of the project evolves, including matters such as appropriate risk allocation and programme management, and ultimately it is the competitive process that determines the price, and rightly so. The final budget figure reflects the outcome of the detailed scoping of the project and the procurement process.

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