Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Since 1 January 2014 Irish Water has statutory responsibility for all aspects of water services planning, delivery and operation at national, regional and local level. This includes the domestic water metering programme. Irish Water's revenue shortfall arising from the proposed suspension of domestic water charges in 2016 is under consideration.

I intend to bring my proposals on this matter to the Government shortly. The future of the metering programme and its associated costs will be part of these deliberations and particular account will have to be taken of the very significant benefits in terms of conservation, leakage detection and the efficiencies in the management of the water network more generally, which the programme has delivered. If Deputies have any queries on specific issues with respect to water services, there is a dedicated team within Irish Water which can respond to those.

My view on this is clear. There is a contract in place to finish phase 1 of the roll-out of the metering programme. My belief is that this should be finished out. The charging we have seen in recent years, which I accept has been controversial, has shown that many people have changed their behaviour as a result of that. In fact, approximately 40% of people were paying charges at below the cap because they were using their meter; they were conserving water in a way that meters were designed to encourage. It has also been useful in detecting leaks. I accept that many of the leaks in the Irish Water infrastructure does not happen between the meter and household dwelling but a percentage of it does and there has been significant detection of leaks as a result of meters.

My view is that we should continue to roll out the metering programme. I believe people will see sense to metering in the medium term. It makes sense to understand how much water is being used, where it is going, where the leaks are and so on. Certainly the evidence to date shows that when people have meters and are paying for water linked to the amount of water they use, that they use those meters, change their behaviour and use less, and thereby conserve more, which is a good development.

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