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

We got €280,000 to spend on the costs, which are expenses related to the commission. That money has not been spent yet. Most of it is for the cost of providing staff from the Institute of Public Administration, IPA, to service the secretariat. That cost relates to a senior researcher, a researcher, administration support - as well as the involvement of the IPA's director general in assisting the commission - and other associated overhead costs. The cost of commission members travelling to and attending meetings of the commission makes up approximately €24,000. Other administrative costs include advertising and fees for members, which are modest. The members will get just over €3,000 each for the work they have been doing and the chairperson will receive €7,500. That is consistent, for example, with the type of fee that the chairman of an Oireachtas committee would get. The workload has been significant in the timeline to which those involved have been working. We have tried to keep that cost to a sensible level but, at the same time, we want to ensure that there is a proper secretariat and that the work is done as professionally as possible from a research perspective and so on.

The expert commission on domestic public water services will, we hope, make its report available to the new special Oireachtas committee on water at the end of this month. That is the timetable for which we are planning.

I have not had engagement with the expert commission, deliberately, because if I had, some people here would accuse me of trying to influence outcomes, etc. I have stayed out of this entirely, apart from setting up the commission. We are setting up a special Oireachtas committee. My understanding is that there was basic agreement at the Business Committee today as to its shape. There will be five Government Deputies, four Fianna Fáil Deputies, two Sinn Féin Deputies and five others, one from each of the smaller groups. I want to ensure that nobody is excluded. There will be four Senators --one Fianna Fáil, one Fine Gael and two others - because it is important that the Seanad is represented on the committee. It will be a group of 20 and we hope to set it up formally next week.

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