Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)
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163. To ask the Minister for Finance the effect and-or cost of the current situation where Irish Water is placed on the books on the deficit-surplus; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [14545/15]

Michael Noonan (Limerick City, Fine Gael)
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As a result of the approach agreed between the CSO and Eurostat during the 2014 EDP dialogue visit, Irish Water has provisionally been classified within general government for the March EDP returns.  A classification proposal on Irish Water is currently with Eurostat. This is a closed process and the CSO will now await the final adjudication of Eurostat.

This resulted in all Irish Water planned expenditure being treated as general government expenditure. Revenues generated by Irish Water are included in general government revenue with all transactions between government bodies and Irish Water being consolidated.

Table 1 sets out the impact of including Irish Water within general government on the general government balance, based on data available at this point in time.

Table 1: Impact of Irish Water on general government balance 2014-2016