Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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753. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government if Irish Water will take on liability for the pensions of local authority water services staff through local service agreements with staff; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [34439/13]

Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael)
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A fundamental underpinning of the water reform programme is to ensure that the skills and experience built up over many years in local authorities are put to best use for the long-term benefit of the customer and t hat there is no negative impact on service to customers during the transition. It is intended, therefore, that the legislation to transfer statutory responsibility for water services to Irish Water will provide for local authorities to act as agents for Irish Water with this relationship being expressed through Service Level Agreements. The majority of the existing staff will remain employees of local authorities working under such arrangements.

A specific structure, the Irish Water Consultative Group, chaired by Mr Kevin Foley of the Labour Relations Commission, was established in 2012 to facilitate engagement between unions and management on the water sector reform programme. Under the auspices of this group, discussions have been held on the human resources aspects of the service level agreements. Agreement has been reached on a framework which provides, inter alia, for the duration of such agreements to be twelve years, with reviews after years two and seven. If a service level agreement is terminated or is not renewed, then the staff concerned will move to Irish Water with their terms, conditions and superannuation arrangements protected.

Work being progressed at present on developing template service level agreements, and associated funding arrangements including an examination of the necessary processes for the transfer of assets and financial liabilities associated with these assets taking into account, inter alia, the impacts on local government finances and the funding model for Irish Water.