Dáil Éireann Debate, Wednesday - 12 June 2013
29. Deputy Thomas P. Broughan asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the level of funding provided by his Department to local authorities to maintain water services, including the National Drinking Water Monitoring Programme; and if he will outline the cost of the water assets and liabilities being transferred by Dublin City Council and other local authorities to Irish Water. [27068/13]
View answerThe overall strategy of investment in water services is to ensure that the timing and scale of investment facilitates economic and other development, achieves compliance with statutory requirements and promotes environmental sustainability objectives. The main vehicles for achieving these objectives have been the multi-annual Water Services Investment Programme 2010-2013 (WSIP) and the Rural Water Programme (RWP).
Since the current WSIP was introduced in 2010 my Department has provided just over €1 billion to local authorities for capital projects up to the end of 2012, and has also recouped €207 million to local authorities under the RWP over the same period. A further €326 million is being made available under the WSIP and RWP in 2013. The contracts funded include contracts to address deficiencies in the quality of supply, to improve the overall capacity of the system and an accelerated programme of mains rehabilitation, and they were strongly influenced by inter alia reports by the Environmental Protection Agency on drinking water quality. The series of reforms currently being advanced in the water sector by the Government is designed to support additional investment in the sector. As part of this strategy, a specific work-stream is considering the matters arising in the proposed transfer of the responsibility for capital programme delivery from the 34 local authorities to Irish Water.
The transfer of assets from the existing water services authorities to Irish Water supports the overall objective of delivering efficiencies within the sector by allowing Irish Water to control assets, revenues and costs, thereby supporting better economies of scale in terms of both capital investment and operating costs, and optimise borrowing capacity. The identification and valuation of the relevant asset base and the development of policy and legislation for the transfer of these assets is being progressed.
