Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein)
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1321. To ask the Minister for Housing, Planning, and Local Government the estimated annual cost if the existing subsidy to domestic group and private well water users covered the full operating costs of providing water for domestic use. [25222/18]

Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)
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In late 2017, my Department conducted a review of Group Water Schemes' subsidies. The review involved discussions with the National Federation of Group Water Schemes, the representative body of the group water sector. Discussions concluded in December, when I approved revised subsidy levels. The new subsidy arrangements, endorsed by a special delegate conference of the Federation on 13 December 2017, came into effect on 1 January 2018. It is estimated that the revised subsidy levels will cost approximately €23.3 million per year compared with an average annual cost of €19.5 million for past comparable years.

This increase in the level of subsidies to Group Water Schemes was the first of a number of actions I am taking to address the recommendation contained in the report of the Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services, endorsed by both Houses of the Oireachtas in April 2017, that there is equity of treatment and equivalent financial support between households using public water services and those availing of private water services.

At that time I also signalled my intention to establish a Working Group to conduct a wider review of investment needs and rural water services. The Working Group was established in April 2018 and its inaugural meeting took place on 17 May.

The Group's review is considering how best to position and resource water services in rural areas so that they can contribute further to the development and long-term sustainability of a comprehensive and cohesive Rural Water Sector that will have the capacity to produce quality outcomes comparable to those available to customers of public water services. The Working Group is focusing on the actions required to improve and sustain rural water services, and will consider issues such as governance, supervision and monitoring of the sector, in addition to capital investment priorities and requirements across all elements of rural water services. In keeping with the Joint Oireachtas Committee’s recommendation this Working Group will consider the investment needs of all elements of rural water services includingGroup Water Schemes, Group Sewerage Schemes and Domestic Waste Water Treatment Systems. The Working Group is specifically tasked with addressing grant support for Individual Domestic Water Supplies (private wells) to encourage the refurbishment of wells to improve the quality of drinking water in private supplies.

Considering the importance and scale of this task it is considered important that the Working Group would have access to accurate recent comprehensive information on all aspects of the Rural Water Sector. Therefore to support the business of the Working Group an exercise is being initiated to gather information on the capacity of the Rural Water Sector and to establish the interventions including the levels of capital investment and the levels of funding that will be required to sustain the Sector.