Róisín Shortall (Dublin North West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

In the absence of any recent CER assessment one must say that the figures provided by the Government simply will not stack up. The figure of €63.7 million represents the maximum that is likely to be raised in revenue if there is 100% compliance and not even the Minister believes there will be 100% compliance. Let us imagine there is a 25% non-compliance rate.

A non-compliance figure of 25% is rather conservative. In that scenario, Irish Water would take in less than €30 million. A 35% non-compliance rate - again, a credible possibility - would bring the total down to less than €16 million. What if it got to the point at which there was a non-compliance rate of 46%? That is possible given the sentiment that has been expressed. Under the charging system that the Minister has proposed, this issue will not come to a crunch from the point of view of payment until 2016. If there is a non-compliance rate of a little over 46%, then Irish Water will be in the red, making a loss of approximately €400,000.

A member of the public did this detailed work over the weekend on the basis of the figures released. I will pass the document over to the Minister now. I gather other Members have it already.

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