€300m department underspend to pay for water charge refunds

Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has revealed that the money has been found to pay for €170m in water charge refunds and departments will not be asked to cut services to help foot the bills.

He said a bonus €300m in extra money found this year would help fund the one-off bill for the Government.

Finance Minister Paschal Donohoe last night promised that all of the commitments made in Budget 2017 would be delivered and would not be impacted by refunds.