Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

110. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the overall amount of money allocated to Irish Water to date; if he will provide a breakdown of the sources of that funding including the amount of local property tax that will be used to fund Irish Water. [5730/14]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
Link to this: Individually | In context | Oireachtas source

The establishment of Irish Water is an integral component of the Government’s water sector reform strategy and involves major organisational change, an entirely new funding structure governed by economic regulation, the introduction of domestic water charges based on usage and the roll-out of a national domestic metering programme. The role of my Department is to drive the overall water sector reform process which includes developing the policy and legislation and ensuring delivery of the implementation strategy which was published in December 2012.

BGE had responsibility for most of the deliverables under the Government water sector reform implementation strategy. BGE developed a detailed programme initiation document within the framework of this strategy, which outlined all of the tasks required to establish a fully functioning integrated public water utility and provided this to my Department in August 2012. They also provided an associated budget to my Department which outlined the costs involved in each area of activity, totalling €150m plus €30m contingency and reflecting both the use of BGE and external resources. The budget reflected the range of tasks to be undertaken from financial, governance, regulatory business capability, systems, brand management and customer engagement perspectives. It was understood from the engagement with BGE that the majority of the funding under the heading of brand management and customer engagement would be used for customer engagement.

These establishment costs were initially funded by BGE and subsequently financed by a loan from the National Pensions Reserve Fund (NPRF). No Exchequer funds or voted Department expenditure has been provided to BGE or to Irish Water for establishment costs. As these costs were to be included in the overall funding model for Irish Water, they would also be examined by the Commission for Energy Regulation as an integral element of the independent economic regulation of Irish Water.

The Revised Estimates Volume for Public Services 2014 estimates total income to the Local Government Fund of €1.710 billion in 2014, including estimated Local Property Tax income of €550m. An amount of €490m is provided for Irish Water from the Fund in 2014. I expect the final outturn figure for 2014 will be slightly less than this amount at €486.5m. This amount will fund water related expenditures incurred heretofore by local authorities; these expenditures were previously met by local authorities from their own resources and general purpose grants. Irish Water, which is now responsible for capital investment in water services infrastructure, will also receive €240m in equity from the Minister for Finance.