Grace O'Sullivan (Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I will follow on from what Senator Paudie Coffey said.

Mr. Grant addressed in particular communities and the public interest. Because there is a history with the brand of Irish Water, I emphasise that whatever financial efficiencies are being made throughout the company, resources must be put into ensuring the public will receive every service possible. I understand the hotline is working very well, which is welcome, but the delegates might look at other ways of engaging with the public, particularly in rural communities. Organisations such as An Taisce have road shows at schools and in communities in order to provide information. I ask the delegates take a creative approach. Water is a vital resource. It is one of the services that really agitates the public because of the history of the brand.

Therefore, every resource should be put into ensuring that the public is informed of the move towards this single utility and that it is up to date on what is happening. This reflects back on what Deputy O'Dowd said about transparency. There must be full transparency. The worst thing for us as a nation are the people's grievances. As public representatives, we hear these grievances.

The Green Party has received many calls with regard to the Shannon-Dublin project. In particular, there is a question about the data that are being used. There have been many efficiencies achieved as a result of the first fix scheme but our information is that Irish Water is using data from before the leakages were fixed. There may, therefore, be a question over the actual demand in the greater Dublin area. The level of demand may be such that it is not necessary to take water from the Shannon and transport it across the midlands into the Dublin area. I am relaying what we are hearing. There was a request to invite representatives of Irish Water again to deal with some of these issues. I want to bring to the witnesses' attention, however, that there are public concerns about this particular scheme and that the data being used by Irish Water is not necessarily the relevant data.

In his response to Senator Murnane O'Connor, Mr. Grant referred to benchmarking. Against what companies or other utilities is Irish Water being benchmarked?