Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

One of the problems is that people will pay by volume and to measure volume there must be a meter, as Senators have correctly indicated. The first phase of houses to be metered have a direct connection to the mains and we know where that connection is. Along the street there are pipes going to the premises and the meter will go at the boundary box, and we know exactly where that is. With a significant number of homes - somebody mentioned there are 200,000 to 300,000 homes - we may not know where the pipes are or they cannot be found. The house I live in was built in the 1930s and in that case the water supply runs behind the houses rather than in the front, so it is not practical to dig up somebody's garden in order to install a meter. An economic decision would have to be made as to whether to put a new pipe at the front of the homes and below the public footpath, which would cost money, or find an alternative. There are studies in some parts of Ireland considering how to put a meter inside a home or in a location that is not necessarily at the preferred point outside. If a person lives in an apartment complex, in some countries there is a grouped meter outside. Depending on the number of apartments and occupancy, a fair and reasonable charge could be levied. I am sorry the Senator is not happy with that and perhaps I could provide further information on the matter before Thursday. In other examples two farms may have a shared connection. People live in different ways and nobody knows in some cases where water is coming from. The Senator may be aware of some such cases.