Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)
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235. To ask the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government when the Government will resubmit an application for Irish Water under the EUROSTAT test; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [1735/16]

Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour)
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The classification of public sector bodies is reviewed by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) on an on-going basis in line with relevant European System of Accounts regulations. Following receipt of the Eurostat decision last year, the CSO indicated that the classification of Irish Water involved complex technical decisions and the CSO would be engaging with Eurostat through the appropriate channels to clarify some interpretation issues which arose in the decision, which was one of the first decisions for a new public utility under the new ESA regulations. They also indicated that the first opportunity to review the classification decision for Irish Water would be in 2016 when annual financial statements become available and that this would be done as part of the normal annual review of the register of public bodies. The timing of any review of classification is entirely a matter for the CSO, who are wholly independent in this function.