Emer Higgins (Dublin Mid West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank all our guests for being with us. In my constituency, we have community living at Hazelhatch. I have had representations from many people there and from many people who are in the Gallery. It is very striking and telling how packed a Gallery it is. I do not think Ryan Tubridy got that.

I have friends who own barges, so I have had the privilege of spending time sleeping on board on the River Shannon, at Lough Derg and on our canals. I can see what a tremendous amenity they are and the investment that has been put in place at loughs and harbours up and down the River Shannon in particular. My real concern, and the concern I am hearing very loud and clear, is about fees. I am very interested in delving into this a little to understand where this new proposed fee structure in draft by-law 39 comes from. It will come in on a staggered basis and go up quite dramatically year after year. I know that there was a KPMG report. I appreciate that Mr. Rowe is here to listen. It is great to hear him say on the record that he will seriously consider the submission by Grand Canal Basin residents. That is very important. However, a fee analysis document was submitted to the committee towards the end of last year. I do not know whether that has been fed into this fee structure at all. I am very interested to hear a little about that, about why it is so high, and to understand, if there is a willingness to reduce it, how it can be made much more doable and much more liveable for people.

From a correlation perspective, there is still a lot of confusion around how increased fees will result in improved services for people in urban communities in particular. We are talking about London prices here but what we do not have are London facilities and amenities. People are paying for their own electricity, for example. There is one public toilet at Grand Canal Dock. We do not have the same level of amenities London has. Will money be ring-fenced for providing exactly those amenities or will it go into the general budget and not be seen on the ground by people who really need this investment in services? We are talking, in some cases, about a 650% increase in the price. If someone talked about increasing rent by 650%, we would not tolerate it because rent is capped, in many instances, in line with inflation. We need to hear from people on the ground when there is that level of increase. It is great that Waterways Ireland is here to listen. This has to be a listening exercise as well as a monetary exercise.