Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I want to add one piece to Deputy Donnelly’s maths. If we take in all the figures the Minister is talking about and add a possible €36 million gap between the Minister’s estimate of the number of households that will get the grant and the number the Central Statistics Office, CSO, says exist, it comes to €42 million but the Minister has not given us a figure for the maintenance costs for metering. He gave us the capital cost broken down on an annual basis but what about the maintenance costs for metering? Those have to be added in as well, which is likely to bring it down further. We do not know the cost of the administration of the grant. Deputy Donnelly gives a figure of 3% working on €5 million but if it costs Irish Water €22 million to send out the bills, we could be looking at a pretty significant figure, meaning that the net benefit to the State of levying these charges would be absolutely derisory, possibly as low as €20 million. If I were the Minister I would want an adjournment.

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