Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I am going to take the opportunity to ask the Minister a question about local authority staff being transferred over to Irish Water. The staff are now to be transferred in the year 2021. The original plan was that they would be transferred over at a later date, I think it was 2026 although I stand to be corrected on that. It is happening five years before it was originally planned. I am concerned that this has implications for those workers in terms of their pay and pensions. The official line is to say it will not make any difference. However, the experience of workers who have been transferred from State to semi-State bodies in the past has been that there were implications for pay and pensions. Any telecom worker will give the Minister the lowdown in that regard. Will the Minister indicate who made the decision to speed up the transfer? When was that decision made? Will the Minister comment on potential implications for the pay and pensions of those workers?

Provision is being made for €173 million to be paid to 990,000 households by way of refunds on water charges, paid either in full or in part. I welcome the fact that we are making this provision. I believe that many of the 990,000 households paid under duress. I have plenty of experience in my own constituency of pensioners having received phone calls from Irish Water putting them under pressure to pay, even if it was only a fiver, so as to avoid penalties. While those households are rightly getting their money back, they owe a debt of gratitude to those who marched and who did not pay. Those households took the risks-----