Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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88. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the total amount spent to date on the setting up of Irish Water; the total amount spent on consultancy fees; and the estimated total cost by the end of 2014. [25363/14]

Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)
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Bord Gáis Eireann (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.

I understand that Irish Water has spent almost €134 million to date on establishment costs and that this includes €64.6 millionon external service providers.