It looks like Irish households will pay €250 a year to begin with. Factoring in the kinds of exemption the Taoiseach has referred to, approximately €300 million will be raised. Ireland's water infrastructure costs approximately €1.2 billion to run. We know there are a great many inefficiencies in the way it is run currently. There are 33 separate entities involved and layers of management and administration that those working in the service say are not needed. There are plenty of outdated monitoring and control systems. How much money could be saved by doing this properly?

It was estimated that in Northern Ireland, approximately 40% of the cost base could have been saved by updating the water service. Scottish Water achieved almost exactly 40% savings in the first five years after upgrading its system. Let us be conservative and say that Ireland can only achieve 25%. It would mean a saving of approximately €300 million, which is almost exactly the same amount that will be raised from water charges. Instead, we learned in January that Ireland is applying a different approach and that service level agreements are being put in place for the next 12 years. The entire cost base is being locked in. Unlike Scottish Water's saving of 40%, there will be no cost savings in Ireland over the next five to six years. We were told by the Cabinet that saving money early on could only ever be achieved in a mythical country. To the best of my knowledge, Scotland exists.

The Government's approach means the new water charge will not pay for water or to upgrade infrastructure. The only thing it will pay for is political expediency. The €250 bill will not be for water, it will be a bill for unnecessary cost. It is a bill that effectively says, "We refuse to improve the operational effectiveness of the system so we are going to charge you instead". It effectively says, "We have decided not to implement the kind of reform that we promised the people before the election". The Government will not be charging Irish households for their water, it will charge them to maintain hundreds of millions of euro in unnecessary costs.

Does the Taoiseach accept that savings in such an inefficient system can be found in the first five years? Will he instruct Irish Water to find these savings on behalf of the people and agree to reduce the water charges to households by whatever amount of savings can be found?

If there was no subvention as proposed by the Government, the average domestic charge would be €580. Service level agreements, etc., are matters for further discussion. I do not accept that there should be 12 year service level agreements and I have said as much in the House before. The Deputy should also take into account the prospective 25% reduction in staff over the next five years. It is possible to achieve significant savings. Clearly, the system which has evolved over the years is no longer fit for purpose and is costing the taxpayer €1.2 billion across 34 local authorities.

I point out to the Deputy that the EPA reports that remedial action is now required on 16% of supplies. Many of the at-risk schemes are very large and include schemes in Dublin and Cork which are the subject of official EPA reports. Deputy Donnelly is well aware of the significant supply constraint in a city as large and as rapidly growing as Dublin.

It is absolutely unacceptable that 40% of water is unaccounted for, or is leaking away into the ground. Some 36% of water treatment plants did not meet EPA effluent standards in 2011. The European Commission has launched a pilot infringement case against Ireland in respect of 80 treatment plants. The State would not be in a position to deal with these infrastructural requirements without the advent of Irish Water, which is able to borrow to fund these things. The Government has decided to implement the "user pays" principle. We want to adopt that principle to make the system as flexible, affordable and equitable as possible. When the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government brings his proposition to the Cabinet, the Government will be perfectly entitled to consider it. It has a duty to talk about all of these issues. It has a responsibility to adhere to the principle of fairness and affordability in what is done here.

As I have said, the metering programme is continuing with an average of between 27,000 and 30,000 meters being installed every month. All of these issues will be discussed and decided on by the Government in the next short time. The CSO has explained the rules in the EUROSTAT context. The maximum subvention in 2015-16 is €535 million, giving an average metered charge of €240 per household to be divided through the quarters as a utility measure. The Government's focus will be on the details of how this can be made as affordable and as fair as possible, in the knowledge that this is the last of the major decisions it has to impose on people. I recognise that this is always difficult. We have to deal with it in the context of how far behind this country is in terms of water quality and the water supply infrastructure. We will try to deal with it now in as fair and as affordable a way as we can.

I agree with everything the Taoiseach has just said. It makes perfect sense. The problem is that it does not reflect what is happening. The Taoiseach has said he does not agree with the service level agreements, but they are in place for 12 years. To date, we cannot get a business plan from Irish Water. When we rang them this morning to ask if we could see a business plan, they told us that there is no business plan. There is an environmental assessment, a capital expenditure programme and some other report, but there is no business plan that we can see. We have to rely on what we hear from the Cabinet. In January, we heard clearly from the Cabinet that there would be no cost savings whatsoever for the first five or six years. I welcome the Taoiseach's position, but I respectfully suggest that it does not reflect what is happening on the ground.

When I asked the Minister, Deputy Noonan, last week why the Government is abandoning thousands of Irish families that have mortgages with Irish Nationwide, he said, not unreasonably, that "nobody stands up for the taxpayer anymore". I will put aside the fact that the Irish Nationwide proposal would have benefited the taxpayer. I will ignore the fact that the taxpayer funded the payment of tens of billions of euro to bondholders. Instead, I will apply the Minister for Finance's very reasonable principle to Irish Water. In the case of Irish Water, every euro that this Government refuses to get from operational efficiencies is a euro that an Irish family will have to pay. I am very happy to take the Taoiseach at his word. My understanding of what he has said is that he believes there are savings that can be found in the first few years. Will he publish for Dáil Éireann the business plan? Will he show us what the cost base is and what the projected savings are? Will he commit that these savings can be passed on to Irish households in a reduction in the annual water charge?

We should be shown the plan.

I commit to having the Government discuss the range of issues we will have to discuss to make this as fair and affordable as possible. I also commit to have a full-scale debate in the Dáil, or in an appropriate committee, once the matter is finally decided. I also commit to ensuring the business plan is published and debated after it has been put in place.

Surely a business plan is in place.

There is a process starting tomorrow with the regulator, who has to discuss and have a public consultation about the structure of the tariff to be involved here and later about the details of how that is going to apply.

We will have a debate after it is decided.

The Government has to give policy directions to the regulator and it will do so. As I have said, the Government's discussions in the next period will focus on how to make the important figures which have not been signed off on, as explained by the CSO in respect of the maximum subvention which determines the average meter charge, as affordable and fair as possible.