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Dáil Éireann debate -
Thursday, 19 Jan 2017

Vol. 935 No. 2

Other Questions

Housing Issues

John Curran

Question:

6. Deputy John Curran asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the additional action he will take to significantly increase the supply of housing being made available through the repair and leasing scheme (details supplied); and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2023/17]

I will try to introduce my question briefly.

The housing strategy, Rebuilding Ireland, recognises the issue of vacant properties. Action 5.1 of the strategy commits to developing a national vacant-house strategy. Action 5.7 refers specifically to the repair and leasing initiative. In October 2016 the Minister initiated that process with a pilot scheme in Wicklow and Waterford. Budget 2017 allocated €6 million for 150 units. I ask the Minister to advance that at a more rapid rate over the coming years.

I can give a straight answer to that question. The Deputy will shortly see quite a big initiative from me to increase the emphasis on repair and leasing. We will try to move budgets around to try to ensure we use this scheme as a way to get many vacant properties back into use much faster.

We had to ensure the scheme worked and was legally sound which is why we have essentially had pilot projects in Carlow and Waterford, which have been successful. We want to introduce the repair and leasing scheme to Dublin and other parts of the country quite quickly. We want to dramatically increase the level of ambition in terms of the numbers of properties we want to bring in through it. Essentially this means we will be able to offer property owners the cost of repairing properties to make them fit for the rental market for social housing. We will essentially cover the cost of that upfront and recoup that cost from a rent over a five- or ten-year period.

Many people will not put private property into social housing because they do not have the money to spend €10,000, €15,000 or €20,000 doing the place up. We are solving that problem. Not only are we solving it but we are also saying to the landlord or property owner that they do not even have to worry about the repairs as we will manage them, we will also manage the tenant, and we will give back the property in five or ten years' time more valuable than it is now. In the meantime they should allow us to use it for social housing. I think we can get many hundreds if not thousands of properties back into use using this scheme. It has proven its worth in Waterford.

I want to rely on approved housing bodies as well as local authorities to drive the scheme. I believe that approved housing bodies, such as Focus Ireland and others, will be willing to knock on doors and ask people if they would be willing to make their property available under certain conditions.

Go raibh maith agat.

I will push this scheme hard and we will spend much more than €6 million on it this year.

I thank the Minister for the reply. When he launched his strategy, I was in no way critical of it, but I said that implementation would be critical. Previous replies I have received from the Minister on this have indicated there would only be €6 million and so I welcome his commitment here today to increase the scheme.

The strategy clearly recognises that these properties can be brought back more quickly than a new build. That is one of the key reasons behind it. This scheme has greater potential in 2017 and 2018 as other issues relating to planning and development of new builds begin to come back to the market. I want to see this frontloaded and driven as quickly as possible.

Specifically the Minister said he would introduce a scheme; we want to see the detail of that with - he is noted for this - specific targets for the coming two years.

In reply to me previously, the Minister indicated that he saw the scheme having the capacity to deliver 3,500 units between now and 2021. My real focus is determining what can be delivered in 2017 and 2018. These are the key years because, even with the best will in the world on the part of the local authorities in terms of building local authority houses and so forth, construction will not meet the demand at present. We must prioritise this in order to bring additional properties back into use quickly.

The Deputy is a rock of sense, as usual -----

I hope the Minister is not being sarcastic.

The kiss of death.

No, not at all. I mean that because that is exactly what we are trying to do. Everybody wants more social housing in the system and nobody wants it more than me but we simply cannot build houses overnight. Even rapid-build housing takes time. If we can get vacant properties that are idle at the moment, making no contribution to anybody, back into the system and put long-term leases in place to provide extra social housing in Dublin and other parts of Ireland, that would make a lot of sense. It is also a way of repopulating villages and towns in rural Ireland. It is working in Waterford so there is no reason for not expanding it significantly. Initially, we made €6 million available for 2017 which would cover around 150 properties. We are now looking to ramp that up very significantly and will announce the targets and the spend for 2017 in the next ten days or so. We want to get a faster turnaround to increase the number of social houses more quickly by getting vacant properties that are doing nothing at the moment back into the system.

I thank the Minister for his reply. Acknowledging that there is somewhere in the region of 200,000 vacant properties nationally and upwards of 40,000 in the greater Dublin area, I believe the Minister is right. This scheme has potential at the front end. I look forward to the publication in the next week or two of the details of the additional budget and the targets. I urge the Minister to be as ambitious as possible. Not hitting the target is not the end of the world but there is no place for under-ambition in the context of the crisis we are facing. I appreciate the Minister's comments and look forward to seeing the plan published in the next few weeks.

I can be accused of many things but under-ambition is not one of them. I regularly set targets and they are normally pretty ambitious although some of them might not be as ambitious as some Members would like. We will be taking the same approach on this. We will set ambitious targets and then go after them as best we can. This will put many people under pressure but I see this as a way of getting many properties back into use quickly. It is a really good deal for property owners too. Basically, somebody else will take charge of the property, get a tenant in, manage the tenancy and do any necessary upgrade work and at the end of the tenancy period, the property owner will have a more valuable property and will have had a decent rental income from it in the meantime. This is a win, win situation.

The official figures indicate that there are approximately 200,000 vacant properties, excluding holiday homes. Many of those will not be accessible through this scheme but even if a fraction are, we can get thousands of properties back into use. The question is how fast we can do it.

Rent Controls

Ruth Coppinger

Question:

7. Deputy Ruth Coppinger asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the progress in extending rent pressure zones to other areas. [2178/17]

I want to ask when the Minister will expand the rent pressure zones and why he has taken such a softly, softly approach to the whole question. Rents are rising at a faster rate in places like Kildare, Meath, Laois and other areas adjacent to Dublin, in the suburbs of Cork and in areas adjacent to Galway, Limerick and Waterford cities but the Minister has not extended the rent pressure zones to those areas. I also ask the Minister to comment on the actual rates of rent.

When we debated this issue before Christmas, Deputy Cowen, in particular, and several other Deputies, raised the issue of the need to expand this beyond Cork and Dublin quickly. I intend to do that but I want to do it on the basis of sound data rather than on the basis of making decisions to be popular. We simply did not have the data needed, on a local electoral area basis, to be able to designate areas that are experiencing real rent pressures at the moment. They were not designated as such because the only data we had was on a local authority area basis. When the figures were aggregated, this meant that towns that had huge rental pressures did not qualify because of rural areas in the same local authority area which did not have such pressures. We will have data in the next few weeks - indeed, information is already starting to come through - that will mean we will be looking at designating at least 15 new areas, in terms of local electoral areas. We will get assessments of those areas done quickly so that we can create new designations for rent pressure zones as quickly as possible.

I gave commitments that we would do that quickly and would not delay so that people who are in areas that have real pressures will see that the Government is serious about extending rent pressure zones. The areas we are focusing on are cities like Waterford, Limerick and Galway as well as areas adjacent to Dublin and Cork city. This includes counties like Wicklow, Kildare, Meath and places on the outskirts of Cork City like Carrigaline, Ballincollig and so on. If areas qualify under the criteria with which everyone is familiar, they will be designated as rent pressure zones and the rules will apply. We will limit rent inflation in those areas to 4% annually.

The Minister said that before Christmas and the entire nation was gobsmacked when he said that there was no data to show that rents were rising, if not rocketing, in those areas. There are countless Deputies here who can attest to that and the Minister could just look at www.daft.ie on any day to see the level of rent in those areas.

I also want to ask the Minister about the rate of rent. His private rental strategy contains a proposal that has not been very well advertised, namely, to fast-track evictions on the basis of non-payment of rent. Most people get into rent arrears because rents are so high. It has been reported by the National Competitiveness Council that people are spending 41% of their income on rent. That is not sustainable, particularly for families. Obviously, for those in receipt of rent allowance, the amount they must personally pay has increased dramatically.

The Dublin Tenants Association responded to the Minister's strategy as follows: "The strategy introduces ‘fast track’ evictions for tenants who are unable to pay their rent. This is the last thing we should be doing during a homelessness crisis." It is a very strange decision on the part of the Minister.

It is not strange at all. We need to have a faster dispute resolution process for tenants and landlords. Some people in this House only want to make the case for one side of the rental debate. Of course, we need to introduce changes to protect tenants from spiralling rents and to address the matter of security of tenure to ensure that landlords are not abusing tenants, but we also need to have a policy that is balanced towards landlords. Otherwise, we will not have any landlords. My job is to introduce a balance here that can allow the rental sector to function. I must ensure that the State increases its input into the rental sector by increasing the amount of social housing that we have, while also ensuring that we have a private rental market that is functioning properly. If there are disputes, if someone breaks the law or if someone is being treated unfairly in the private rental sector, I want the Private Residential Tenancies Board, PRTB, to be able to deal with that quickly. That is all we have legislated for and that makes sense for both tenants and landlords.

The Minister gives the impression that if tenants do not pay their rent, it will take years to evict them but in fact the process at the moment is that they only have to be given 28 days' notice, plus 14 days during which they are given the opportunity to pay their arrears, regardless of how small. While I accept that there can be a variety of reasons for disputes between landlords and tenants, the main reason people fall into arrears is because their rents are rocketing and the Minister has done nothing about that. There is a 4% cap on rent increases in Dublin and Cork, but there is no such cap anywhere else. Indeed, I would argue that 4% is still quite a lot. Is the Minister going to allow wage demands of 4% to be met in order to allow people to meet rent increases?

We will always have a problem with rents as long as we continue to house low-income people in the private rental sector. That sector should be shrunk in this country, not enlarged.

This is the source of evictions, poverty and homelessness, and only when the Government starts to build public housing on the scale needed, which is in the order of thousands at this point, will we be able to stop people getting into rent arrears.

I agree we need to build thousands of social housing units, and we will do so, but it does not happen overnight. People seem to think we can turn away from a functioning rental market and just build thousands of social housing units overnight at the wave of a hand. This is just not the way it works. We are building capacity in the system to build tens of thousands of social housing units over time, but we cannot do it overnight. We must have a property sector with a balance between a functioning private rental market, where many people are happy to reside if they can get affordable rent. We need to work towards this to ensure that people who want to buy houses are able to afford to do so and live in close proximity to where they want to live and that those who need State intervention through social housing are able to access social housing in a reasonable timeframe. We are working towards all of these aims.

Pyrite Remediation Programme

Clare Daly

Question:

8. Deputy Clare Daly asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government his plans to amend the pyrite remediation scheme; if he is satisfied sufficient funding is available to ensure all homeowners whose properties have been damaged by pyrite can have their properties remediated and-or certified as pyrite free; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2021/17]

This question is on the pyrite remediation scheme and whether the Minister is satisfied the scheme has sufficient funding and structure to ensure all homeowners affected by pyrite have a remedy of having their property remediated or, in the instance of this not happening, obtaining a green certificate because sadly, the reality on the ground is the scheme is deficient. Has the Minister noted this and does he have plans to change it? Is he happy there is enough money to deal with everything? What is the lie of the land at present?

With regard to the funding, based on the figures of recent years, the €22 million allocated for this year's budget should be sufficient to deal with the applications going through the process where properties have sufficient damage to be fixed. Last year, more than 400 properties were completed and 553 properties have been completed in total. The €22 million should cover another 450 or 500 properties. Last August, additional resources and another €7 million were allocated. If the money to fix the houses is spent quicker during the year we will apply for more money if needs be to address it. The figures are that so far, 553 properties are complete, 201 are at remedial work planning stage, 77 are at tender stage and 242 are under remediation. There is enough money for this year's spend. As the years go on, more houses will need to be addressed because the scheme is open-ended.

The Deputy is probably speaking about properties which have not been approved for remedial works and people who feel they have been left in limbo. The standards are being reviewed through public consultation. When the process is complete we will have a look at it and see what categories of people remain. I am conscious there are people who feel they are being left in limbo because their houses do not qualify for remedial works but the association with pyrite is causing them difficulty. We are prepared to look at this. There are no plans in place to change the scheme. I am conscious of the people in this category and we will see what we can do. The first part is to have the complete the review with regard to the National Standards Authority of Ireland, NSAI.

I agree with the Minister of State as in my experience money is not the problem. The reason I tabled the question is there is a problem and thousands of homeowners whose properties have pyrite are being excluded from the scheme not just because of the manner in which it was established but because of the manner in which the board has chosen to interpret the conditions. I have had repeated replies to parliamentary questions where I am told dwellings which do not have a damage condition rating of 2 are not eligible to apply. This is not true. When the pyrite panel report was done, properties with damage condition ratings of less than 2 were eligible to apply for the scheme. We were told a common sense approach would arise in the case of adjoining dwellings. This common sense approach has not happened. When will the new NSAI standard be introduced? It will not solve anything because based on what we have seen it is only a technical re-evaluation of matters. With regard to a common sense approach, why are adjacent or nearby properties not included in phases when works have been already approved?

I do not have a date for when the new standard will apply. I hope the work will be completed very shortly because it is important to have it. It might change the situation for some people. At least when we have the new standard we can judge where it goes afterwards.

The Deputy spoke about common sense. The criteria are very tight and clear with regard to how money will be spent. It is taxpayers' money. There is a huge cost in the remedial work to these houses. I have been in the houses and people will admit it is questionable to warrant spending €50,000 of taxpayers' money to fix a house where significant damage has not progressed. This is what we must ask ourselves. It does not solve the problem because people are left in limbo and still have pyrite in their houses. It is at a low level but it is there and they cannot sell the property. It is an issue. The question that must be asked is whether we spend a lot of money fixing a house which does not yet have significant damage. There is a commitment that if damage progresses there is no closure date for the scheme and those houses will be fixed, but we must question the value for money aspect. I have told people we will try to find solutions if we can for those who feel their lives are on hold because they are in the wrong category but still have pyrite associated with their house.

As the Minister of State has said, money is not the problem and no one is asking him to spend money that does not need to be spent. The reality is there are properties which are not being remediated. Perhaps they do not need to be remediated, but if they do not then those people must have access to a green certificate which states an end point has been reached and the property is fit for resale.

The Minister of State has said there is no closure. There certainly is not for these people because while this process continues they cannot move on. They are stuck in a grey area. I know many of them are in the Minister of State's constituency. We need an urgent review of this category. We need to go back to the pyrite panel report. It was not as prescriptive as the board is now interpreting it. It means the grey area category in the middle is bigger than it needs to be. I am arguing that greater flexibility be allowed by the standard set in the scheme then is actually being interpreted. As there is a of a stand-off now and nobody with a damage condition rating of 2 is included, then for this logjam to be shifted the Department needs to step in and argue for what I would say is a bit of common sense and look at properties with a damage condition rating of 1 with progression.

In Lusk there is a cul-de-sac with nine properties where one property is looking for inclusion as it would complete the entire cul-de-sac, but it is not being remediated in the same phase as the other houses. It will be done five phases later. This means remediation work will happen on the road twice. It is ridiculous.

It is not due to a lack of common sense. The criteria are very tight and rightly so because it is taxpayers' money. The priority is to fix the houses with considerable damage which are very badly affected. This is what we are trying to do. More than 1,400 applications have been made, 553 have been fixed and 500 are in play this year. We are trying to deal with those in bad need of remedial works. This is the priority. I accept there are people in the next category with pyrite levels in their house or who have pyrite associated with their estate and they cannot sell their house. However, this does not necessarily justify spending €50,000 on a house if it does not need to be fixed yet. This is not common sense either. I agree with the Deputy we must find a solution whereby we can address this. I am being asked by some people to spend money on houses that do not need it. In fairness to the Deputy, she is not doing so but others have.

Green certificates.

I accept that. This is what I am saying, we must find a way to deal with it. This is why the new standard that will be announced shortly, I hope, might help us to achieve this in some cases. If not, we will have to go even further again. I am committed to trying to find a process to end this limbo. I accept that, but I ask the Deputy not to tell me there is a lack of common sense because there is not. There are criteria for a reason. It is taxpayers' money. More than €50 million has been spent so far, which is lot of money to spend on houses, but rightly so when they need it.

Rent Controls

Mick Wallace

Question:

9. Deputy Mick Wallace asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government if he will introduce measures to define market rent; if he has considered taking the example of the mietspiegel arrangement in Germany, whereby local rents are calculated by local government on the basis of square metre; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [2172/17]

At present, as we all know, market rent is an immeasurable quantity. Has the Minister considered looking at the mietspiegel arrangement in Germany, whereby local rents are calculated by local government on the basis of square metre? It is an index of the rent paid by tenants broken down by size, location, age and standard categories. It means there is a defined market rent by which tenant and landlord have a basis for comparison. I am not saying for one moment that we should throw the landlord to the wind. Security of tenure can also mean security for the landlord. There can be stability on both sides, which we lack at present.

Market rent is defined in the Residential Tenancies Acts as the rent a willing tenant would give and a willing landlord would take for the dwelling concerned, having regard to the other terms of the tenancy and the letting values of dwellings of a similar size, type and character and situated in a comparable area. It is important to note that any notice of new rent given by a landlord to a tenant must be accompanied by three examples of comparable rents, all relating to dwellings advertised for rent in the month prior to the date of the notice. Having considered the definition of market rent during the development of the strategy, I believe this is a robust definition which is enforceable having regard to the RTB rent index, and I do not intend to amend the definition of market rent at this time.

My understanding from a note I have about Germany is that new rent control measures were part of the programme for Government in 2013 and came into effect in September 2014. The legislation sets out that rents for new leases in certain areas can only be set at a maximum of 10% above average local rents. This is aimed at keeping local average rental inflation relatively low. In comparison, in Ireland rents cannot be set above the market rent and in a rent pressure zone rents under new leases are governed by new rent control measures with maximum increases of 4%. I am not sure that switching to the German approach would make a significant difference. Under the mietspiegel, which means "rent mirror", approach, local authorities attempt to calculate, on the basis of average local rent, what certain areas are paying as a guidance figure. We are trying to achieve that as well by forcing landlords to get at least three rent advertisements for similar properties in the area, a process that is overseen by the RTB. I understand the point the Deputy is making and that we need to find a mechanism to slow down dramatic rental inflation and protect against landlords taking advantage of the fact that there is a significant supply shortage in certain areas. We are trying to do that with the introduction of the rent pressure zone measures before Christmas.

The big problem is that the 4% rate is on top of a rate that is way too high and unaffordable for too many people. It is having a huge impact and the Government is now hearing how it affects the Brexit process. The fact that accommodation is so expensive will stop companies from moving here. One can rent an apartment in any city in Italy for €400 per month and there is no comparison between what one pays in Berlin and what one pays here. Putting 4% on top of what is already there is off the Richter scale for too many people.

I accept that we cannot build social housing overnight but we have to have an appetite to build a lot of it and to get the process started to do so. I am not convinced that the Minister really wants to build a lot of new social housing. Does the Minister agree that, to tackle the long-term problem, we will have to do that?

I do. At the moment social housing makes up between 7% and 8% of total housing stock. I think the average in Europe is between 17% and 18%. We need to significantly increase our social housing stock and that is why we are proposing to increase it by nearly 50,000 over the next five years, increasing social housing stock as a percentage of the total by nearly 30%. I am absolutely committed to that because the State's intervention in housing needs to be balanced. We need to intervene around affordable housing and, in particular, around social housing. We need to ensure we build housing in the right places, achieve integration and mixed tenure, as well as decent homes for people in vibrant communities. I have an agreement in Cabinet to spend €5.3 billion doing that, which is a pretty significant commitment.

We all accept that people having to pay almost 40% of monthly income on renting a roof over their heads is unsustainable in the long term. Rents are so much higher in Ireland than in Europe and it costs so much more to buy that up to 30% of people in the future may need social housing. Deputy Donnelly said we were looking for an incentive for house building to compete with the commercial sector. We should let the private sector build commercial property but the State must play a more active role in the residential sector.

I will not get to my next question but I do not understand why the Government has not dealt with the site value tax. The tax is supposed to come into effect in two years' time but there are more holes in it than in a sieve. We should charge a serious rate on land that is not being built on. A threshold of half a hectare has been set but that is one acre and a quarter. It means that any site under one and a quarter acres in Dublin city will not attract the tax. I built 28 apartments on a fifth of an acre but the Minister has introduced a minuscule levy that only applies to sites bigger that an acre and a quarter. There has not been a genuine attempt to tackle landbanking but it is the biggest problem we have.

I am not sure which element to answer now as there were a lot of questions. We need to bring vacant sites into use, particularly land that has been zoned for residential use. There is a lot of that in Dublin, some of it with full planning permission as well as zoning. We took advice on how soon we could introduce a vacant site levy and we are proceeding with that. If I could do it earlier, in a legally sound way, I would do so. Throughout 2017 local authorities will put together a register of vacant sites and in 2018 this register will be the basis for levies - effectively fines - for inactivity on sites in 2019.

Water Charges

Eoin Ó Broin

Question:

10. Deputy Eoin Ó Broin asked the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government the way in which he calculated the figure of €14 million as recovered revenue if an excess charge for water was introduced; and if his Department has calculated the amount it would cost to administer such a scheme. [2137/17]

In a report in The Sunday Times on 4 January it was suggested the Minister had indicated in an interview that a charge for excess water usage would yield in the region of €14 million annually. Is the report accurate? If it is, on what basis did he derive that figure? If it is not accurate, has the Department done any calculations or had discussions with Irish Water about what a charge for excess use of water could or would be?

The conclusion drawn by the Deputy from the report is not accurate. I do not want to say that the journalist wrote something that was inaccurate as that would not be fair.

It is not my conclusion. The report said the Minister suggested the figure was €14 million.

I said that if there were no charging for water this year the State would have to find an extra €114 million, but that I expected there would be some charge for the wasting of water that would bring the figure down below €100 million.

It has been deduced from my comments that I am saying this will equal €14 million, but that is not actually the case. The water committee will determine this when it makes its decision on what constitutes normal usage of water. In other words, it will decide on the level above which people should be asked to make a contribution for wasting water. I do not think the alternative approach, which involves asking the taxpayer to pay for people who are wasting water, is a credible one. That will be a decision for the committee to make. The number of people who will have to pay for over-use or wastage of water will depend on where the committee decides to set the bar or benchmark with regard to average usage plus a certain percentage for the purposes of flexibility. I do not think we can provide a credible guesstimate of the income that will be received by the State or by Irish Water until we know that figure.

While I accept the Minister's point about the inference he mentioned, it comes from the headline of the article rather than from my interpretation of the article. This is not a question of whether the committee decides to set a level; it is a question of what the revenue would be and what the cost of administration would be.

Those of us who do not want any water charges have made that clear. It would be very useful for the committee's deliberations if the Department or Irish Water were to provide indicative figures so that we can know how much money these charges would bring in if the average usage were set at a certain level and how much it would cost to administer these charges in such circumstances. Many of us are concerned that regardless of whether the relevant figure is €14 million or €30 million, the cost of administering the collection of these moneys would be the same or greater, which would make all of this a pointless exercise. I will repeat the question I asked at the outset. Has the Department looked at what the returns would be if various averages were set, and at what the cost of administration would be in all such circumstances? If not, is it the intention of the Minister or Irish Water to undertake such an exercise in order to assist the committee, which does not have access to the data needed to determine such figures?

The committee has an opportunity to ask multiple stakeholders questions about anything it likes. It has been doing that to date. The importance of this issue extends beyond the creation of a revenue stream. I believe there is an obligation to ensure some element of the water policy that is to be determined encourages conservation and applies the polluter pays principle so that we can be consistent with the commitments we have made under the water framework directive. Of course there are some flexibilities in this regard. I have received a letter from the European Commissioner to that effect. I do not think it is credible for us to say that if people waste water, the general taxpayer will simply pick up the tab. There are two issues here. First, we need to consider what we need to do to reassure people that normal domestic water usage will be paid for through general taxation, but those who waste water will have to pay for that water. Second, if that principle is agreed on in the committee, we need to consider the thresholds that should apply to these decisions and what income streams will flow from them. The expert commission has said that we should look to the regulator to provide suggestions and recommendations in that regard. I think that is a sensible suggestion.

The Minister has now failed to answer my question on two occasions. Many of the points he raised are relevant and can be debated. However, I want to ask my question for a third time. Will the Minister, directly through his Department or indirectly by making a request to Irish Water, assist the committee in its deliberations by providing it with information on the revenue that could be derived from a charge and what the cost of pursuing such a charge might be? Notwithstanding everything the Minister has said, it would make no sense to apply a charge for so-called excess water usage if the cost of applying that charge is greater than the revenue from it. I appreciate that this is not just about generating revenue. I understand the Minister's interpretation of the water framework directive. Taxpayers will not understand it if we propose to pursue the introduction of a charge if the cost of applying that charge is greater than the revenue from that charge. Will the Minister provide the information to which I have referred? Will he ask Irish Water to provide it to the committee? This is the third time I have asked this question. I hope I will get an answer this time.

With respect, it is not up to me to do the job of the committee. Officials from my Department were before the committee yesterday.

They were giving plenty of opinions.

We asked them for this information, but they would not give it to us.

Officials from Irish Water have also been in attendance.

That is why I am asking the Minister to ask the officials to give us this information. It is a simple request.

I ask Deputy Ó Broin to stop interrupting the Minister and instead allow him to respond.

There is nothing preventing the committee from asking my Department any questions it wants. I will try to ensure the committee gets accurate answers. Similarly, there is nothing preventing the committee from asking Irish Water to respond to questions that the committee needs to get answered so that it can draw conclusions.

I will take that as a "Yes".

The best option for the Minister is to let this go.

Written Answers are published on the Oireachtas website.
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