Pat Casey (Wicklow, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief because most matters have already been addressed. Mr. Grant said lessons were learned from last summer and I acknowledge that as so in terms of the recent water incident in Vartry. Getting the information out to the public straight away and informing them alleviated an awful lot of problems and concerns and I appreciate the fact that public representatives were included in the process.

Equally, public education is still required. There is still a blame game as to who is responsible and whether it is the local authority or Irish Water which is why there is a need for a single utility. There should be only one person responsible. I appreciate that that is the way we are heading.

I wish to make a few points around the fast-tracking of the service level agreement from 2025 to 2021. Irish Water wants to terminate it and does not want to enter another service level agreement. Currently, the local authority staff are employed. After the service level agreement finishes, will all those employees, who are now working on behalf of Irish Water, be transferred to Irish Water? What exactly is the situation when the service level agreement comes to an end? Who will employ them?

It is obvious today that there might be a need for another meeting to deal with more operational and technical issues but I want to hit on a few of them now. Sewage connections in back gardens were mentioned. If the connections for four or five houses are in one's garden, one is responsible for them. I understand this situation has been inherited and that is the way it is. Moving forward and planning for the future, however, is it now ensured when planning permissions are granted that each household connects directly to the public sewer and that there are no collective connections into a private garden which is then connected to the public sewer?

There are 31 or 32 different rates for connection fees and development levies. What progress has been made towards bringing all that into one? I will also mention the matter of commercial water. How close are we to harmonising commercial water rates?

On local authorities, the word on the ground is that there are some blockages to large scale developments. I might have a chat with the witnesses later on about the liaison officers they identified earlier.