13. Financial Assets

These are deposits held on terms greater than 3 months at the date of acquisition.

	31-Dec-25 €’000	31-Dec-24 €’000
Term deposits - available for use by the company	160,000	-
Financial securities held on term deposit - not available for use by the company	100,000	40,000
Total	260,000	40,000

Term deposits available for company use primarily comprise of bank deposits with an original maturity of greater than three months. The term deposits held by Uisce Éireann are with a maturity of less than one year and are therefore classified within current assets. The carrying amount of these assets approximates their fair value due to their short remaining maturity and prevailing market interest rates. As these instruments have an original maturity of greater than three months, they do not meet the definition of cash and cash equivalents and are therefore presented as financial assets. Through effective cash management, Uisce Éireann placed a portion of its own funds on deposit for greater than three months, taking advantage of strong liquidity position and elevated interest rates while maintaining short-term liquidity requirements.

The Company also enters into Self-Lay Connection Agreements which provide for the vesting in Uisce Éireann of water and wastewater services infrastructure installed by a customer following quality assurance of the self-lay works and connection to the Uisce Éireann network. To mitigate the risk of asset defects and risk exposure where sub standard work may have been performed, a refundable financial security is received by the Company and held as collateral for the duration of the construction project and is released following completion of the project and a 12-month defects liability period. This security is calculated in accordance with the Connection Charging Policy. There are contractual restrictions on the use of these financial securities. The majority of these financial securities are held on deposit terms greater than 3 months at the date of acquisition (as presented above), and the remainder are held in bank accounts that are accessible by the Company and therefore are presented as “Cash and cash equivalents” (see note 12).