Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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485. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government with reference to correspondence (details supplied) if he will lay out to the best extent possible in tabular form broken down by year the income expected to be generated and income incurred by Irish Water, including the sources of the income and expenditure for each of the years 2013 to 2016, inclusive; and in the case of each figure if he will state whether the cost or revenue was off-balance sheet or included in Government deficit and debt calculations. [43285/14]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The establishment of Irish Water is an integral component of the Government’s water sector reform strategy and involves major organisational change. The establishment of a high performance utility will lead to lower costs and improved services in the future, providing much better outcomes for customers and the environment. Details of Irish Water’s costs are outlined in its revenue and water charges plan which was reviewed by the Commission for Energy Regulation (CER). Details of the review and the CER’s decision are available at .

Irish Water’s costs in the coming years will be funded through a mix of revenue from the domestic and non-domestic sector, third party finance (such as the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund, EIB, bank lending and capital markets facilities) and State support which may be in the form of both equity and subvention. The CER announced its decision on water charges on 30 September 2014. The amount billed to domestic customers for the year 2015 based on the charging structure announced by the CER will be in the order of €300 million and the amount billed to non-domestic customers would be some €230 million. The Government also decided to provide the following funding to Irish Water in 2015 and 2016:

- An average subvention of €537m in each of the two years, conditional on the annual average domestic water charges to end 2016 for households with both supply of water and treatment of waste water not exceeding €240; and

- Provision of just over €400m in 2015 and 2016 to support increased investment in public water services, including the provision of a “first fix scheme” by Irish Water.

This funding package for 2015 and 2016 builds on the funding being provided to Irish Water in 2014, which includes €239 million in capital funding by way of a capital transfer (€185m) and a convertible loan (€39m,) which will be used to primarily fund the core capital expenditure programme of Irish Water.

In addition, Irish Water will receive a subvention of some €440m million from the Local Government Fund in 2014 which will fund water related expenditures incurred heretofore by local authorities and met by local authorities from their own resources, non-domestic water charge revenues and general purpose grants from the Fund. It is anticipated that Irish Water will finance other costs from non-domestic water charge revenues and from borrowing.

In relation to the 2013 finances of Irish Water, details are set out in the 2013 Annual Report and Financial Statements of Bord Gáis which are available online at .