Parliamentary Question addressed to the Minister for Environment, Community and Local Government

 

Reply  

 

 

The Water Services (No.2) Act 2013 transferred statutory responsibility for water services to Irish Water and provided for local authorities to act as agents for Irish Water, with this relationship being expressed through Service Level Agreements. The agreements signed by each authority and Irish Water were tailored to the individual authority circumstances, reflecting numbers of local authority staff covered and the operational budgets appropriate to the cost of providing water services within each authority area.

 

 

T he Revised Estimates Volumefor Public Services 2014     provides     for funding of €490m for Irish Water from the Local Government Fund in 2014 ; the final outturn figure for 2014 is likely to be slightly less than this amount at €486.5m . This will fund water related expenditures incurred heretofore by local authorities from their own resources and general purpose grants. Within this overall framework, the agreement of budgets with local authorities and the payments for services provided are matters for Irish Water. The Annual Financial Statement of each local authority for 2014 onwards will explicitly detail the cost of services provided to Irish Water and the related payments received in each financial year.

 

My Department has asked Irish Water to put in place specific arrangements to address the queries which public representatives may have in relation to matters pertaining to the operation of water services under the new utility. I understand that Irish Water has made contact with Oireachtas members to outline the arrangements for addressing such queries in a timely manner.