Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent)
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250. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government the reason there were no minutes of meetings held between his Department and Bord Gáis Energy on dates (details supplied); the subject of these meetings; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [12519/15]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The Government decided on 17 April 2012 to establish Irish Water as an independent state owned company within the Bord Gáis Group (now Ervia). This was communicated to Bord Gáis Éireann (BGE) by letter, in which in it was indicated that achieving the transition of water services would require a collaborative approach with stakeholders, particularly recognising that Irish Water has significant interdependencies with the local government sector both through Service Level Agreements and through local authorities' other statutory functions. The letter pointed out that an implementation plan for the establishment of Irish Water was being developed by a steering group overseen by my Department and that it would be important that BGE be involved in the finalisation of this plan, so that it had a clear understanding on the milestones that it would have to deliver upon.

It was against this background that a series of meetings were held with BGE representatives in the period April to August 2012. In parallel, the Department was meeting with other stakeholders and was developing the overall implementation plan with the support of PWC. This plan was ultimately approved by Government in October 2012 and published in December 2012. It set out 77 high level milestones required to deliver on the commitments under the Programme for Government and the Troika Programme of Financial Support for Ireland, to establish Irish Water, introduce economic regulation and commence domestic charging based on a national metering programme.

Within this framework, BGE developed a detailed Programme Initiation Document, which is available in the Oireachtas Library, that details the required inputs across all of the areas to set up the utility and deliver on the metering programme within the agreed timescales. This document was provided to the Department in August 2012 and informed the finalisation of the overarching implementation plan. Various meetings were held as this documentation was being developed. Many of these were simply briefing/progress monitoring meetings which did not require minutes as the outcomes were being reflected in the evolving strategy documents. Records were kept, where appropriate, of any decisions or key progress issues. All key decisions were subject to Ministerial or Government approval, as required.