Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister for his answer. The answer he gave was that while he does not have the cost of billing, metering and customer service, he is confident that whatever that cost is, it is less than the revenue raised. However, I think the figure he is talking about when he talks about the revenue raised is the €271 million. I would agree that based on the estimates I have seen, irrespective of the cost of metering, billing and customer service, it is highly likely to be less than €271 million.

However, what we need to compare in asking the House to vote this legislation through is not the €271 million versus the cost of collecting the 1 million, but the €271 million minus the cost of the grant. If €100 is going out to every unique stand-alone household - not house but household - that figure is €166 million. It is entirely likely at this point that the cost of charging people for water will be more than the money that they pay. I do not imagine that any Member of this House, including any Minister, would vote for or stand over legislation with the potential to cost the State money to charge households for water.

Given that no Deputy in the House is clear as to whether domestic charging will end up costing the State money, should we take, maybe half an hour, but actually maybe a few days to let the Minister and his officials pull the numbers together and send them to us to look at? We can then come back here. I do not imagine that any Minister would ask any Labour or Fine Gael Deputy to vote for legislation whereby charging people for water could end up costing the State money.

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