Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is a very important point to clarify because, obviously, the Department will itself have limited resources as regards capital funding. If Uisce Éireann is to treat each group water scheme as a pure customer and charge it for every drop of water it is using, and if the scheme is losing a lot of water due to a lack of capital investment, this will put the scheme in a very detrimental position and will put a huge burden on the community. My point is that, in the past, the councils have had a discretionary power to write down the cost of this. Will Uisce Éireann have that power? Is it the case that the Minister of State does not know but he might clarify this tomorrow, or that the answer is "No", it does not have that power and it will charge for every drop?