Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am proposing an amendment to Schedule 3 in the Valuation Act 2001, which is the principal Act. This Schedule specifies what is relevant property for valuation purposes. I tabled an amendment to include all buildings and facilities used in connection with water and wastewater but not including group or private water or wastewater treatment systems as relevant property for valuation purposes. I am trying to capture Irish Water within this provision. All other commercial semi-State companies are rateable. This sub-committee recently dealt with the Valuation Office as part of the Estimates debate with the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin. We got a list of the global valuations which applied to the ESB and Bord Gáis, which is the parent company of Irish Water. Bord Gáis is paying rates on its network, but its subsidiary, Irish Water, is not. Eircom, Vodafone and others have facilities throughout the country. A national valuation is carried out by the Valuation Office and an amount is then paid to each local authority based on population if a facility relating to the company is in the local authority's area. This is how global valuation works. The Bord Gáis network might not be in every county in Ireland, but generally there is a pro ratareduction for the mobile phone companies and the ESB. If Irish Water is a real commercial semi-State company, there is no reason it should not join the big boys and pay its rates like everyone else. If it is not a real commercial semi-State company, I can understand why the Government might not want it to pay rates. It might feel it is not really a commercial semi-State company and it could not be burdened with the rates bill.

The Secretary General of the Department of the Environment Community and Local Government and his staff recently attended a meeting of the Committee of Public Accounts to discuss Irish Water. We discussed the figure of €59 million which is being paid by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government in lieu of the rates of Irish Water. There are a lot of issues arising from this. This amendment refers to Irish Water because the Schedule deals with what comes within the remit of this legislation. I do not get the logic in having the taxpayer pay the rates bill of Irish Water but not paying the rates bills of Bord Gáis or the ESB. Is it a mechanism to remove costs from the cost structure of Irish Water to help it pass the market corporation test? As far as I am concerned, it is. The CSO will be invited to attend before the joint committee to discuss this particular issue shortly, because it is the body looking after the public interest in that regard.

How did the Valuation Office come by the figure of €59 million? As late at this morning, the Minister, Deputy Kelly, stated in the Dáil during Question Time that all of the liabilities and assets in relation to public private partnerships that are operating water and wastewater treatment plants throughout the country will not be transferred to Irish Water until June. How have we arrived at this figure to be paid by the Department instead of Irish Water which is the owner of the property?

I am obviously excluding group water and private water schemes. This fits the Government's own definition. They are not-for-profit community organisations. They do not exist to make a profit. I did not want, by definition, to include people who have family wells and their own private septic tanks. Therefore, water and wastewater treatment facilities owned by private individuals or group schemes are excluded.

This brings me back to the wastewater treatment systems and the water services controlled by Irish Water. Many of the wastewater treatment plants throughout the country have been built under a design, build and operate model. Ringsend in Dublin is the biggest one. The plant was designed and built and is operated and occupied.

It is the occupier who pays the rates. Are the PPP projects - which exist, by the Minister of State's definition, solely to make profit - paying rates? Companies do not come over from England to manage the water treatment plant in Ringsend in Dublin because they like the Irish; they come over here to make a profit. There are more than €1 billion worth of such treatment plants spread all over the country. There are 20 individual sewage treatment plants with a PPP contract value of in excess of €20 million each. They are there to make profit for the operators or occupiers. Are they paying rates and do they come in under this? If they are paying rates to the local authorities, and now they come in under Irish Water, will the rates bill be removed from them because it will be picked up by the taxpayer?

Essentially, this boils down to a simple issue. If Irish Water is a stand-alone, off-balance-sheet commercial semi-state company like the big boys such as ESB, it should pay its commercial rates. If Irish Water does not meet that test, the Minister of State should put his hands up and state, as I believe to be the case, that it is not really an off-balance-sheet commercial semi-state company to start with. I will accept the argument that Irish Water is not able to pay the rates because it is not a commercial organisation. That is the essence of this amendment.