Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom fáilte a chur roimh na daoine anseo inniu. I thank all of the witnesses for attending. I welcomed Irish Water earlier and I want to welcome Ms Kennedy now, along with the guests from businesses in the Shannon region. I want to ask Mr. Grant and his team about the non-domestic demand analysis. Indecon made it clear that, in its view, given the population growth, the method for calculating non-domestic demand is not appropriate for Dublin. What set of data will Irish Water be using in its updated analysis? Will it be the Indecon sector-by-sector data or the Jacobs-Tobin population growth data?

On leakage, the first-fix scheme for recovering customer side leakage recovered 38 Ml daily in 18 months of operation, despite the fact that only 40% of the leaks identified by the scheme have so far been repaired. The analysis for the Shannon project assumes that the total amount of water being lost to all customer side leakage before the first-fix scheme began was just 40.8 Ml. It would appear that this data point in the analysis for the Shannon project may have been incorrect. In its next analysis, what base year will Irish Water be using in the context of assessing the level of customer side leakage?

Kennedy Analysis states that the analysis for the Shannon project used data for the costs of leakage recovery from before the installation of meters, when the recovery of water through fixing leaks was much more expensive. Kennedy Analysis states that the cost as per the results of the first fix free scheme are less than a third of the costs used in the analysis of the Shannon project. Can Ms Kennedy explain this?

Irish Water may state that the cost of recovering water through fixing leaks is cheaper to start with but that it becomes more expensive as time goes on. In this regard, it is worth noting that the first fix scheme has already recovered three times as much water as the analysis for the Shannon project thought would ever be recovered, factoring in costs. In addition, the costs of recovery per unit of water under the first fix scheme have actually gone down every quarter.

Mr. Grant was very dismissive about the sources of groundwater in Dublin, which I do not accept at all. Kennedy Analysis states that none of the errors identified in terms of the groundwater analysis that was undertaken for the project have been addressed. Can Mr. Grant explain this? I come from County Tipperary, where there are many different sources of water. We discussed a river source earlier in terms of contamination. Groundwater sources are very prevalent all over Ireland. I am sure it is no different in County Dublin. Bore wells are sunk on a regular basis. In my area of Clonmel, people are getting huge supplies in this way. Mr. Grant was very dismissive of those sources. Half of the population of the countryside, including private homeowners and farmers, are depending on them.

It was stated that the Shannon project is all or nothing and that not a drop of water can be delivered until the entire project is completed. This project will cost the best part of €1.3 billion. Regardless of how much water must be supplied eventually, it seems to me to be a strange analysis.

It is notable that the analysis produced by Irish Water's two separate advisers reached very different conclusions on the total water needed in 2050. Indecon concluded that the answer was 207.5 million l and Jacobs Tobin concluded 330 million l. My understanding is that the analysis for the project required that individual water sources demonstrate the ability to supply 350 million l of water daily on their own in order even to be considered as a potential water supply option for Dublin. Would it not be sensible to consider several smaller alternatives in combination that could be brought online incrementally? Could this not also offer Dublin the benefit of diversification away from river water sources and protection in the event of, for example, contamination? I addressed Mr. Grant earlier about a smaller scheme in my local town where a new plant was totally contaminated by kerosene. Will Ms Kennedy explain the three errors to which she referred in her presentation and explain the difference between the leakage figure of 57% and the Irish Water figure of 38%? I note Mr. Grant never mentioned leaks past the meters, in homes, gardens and so on. There is a big discrepancy in the two figures presented.

Lest I be called out as being anti-Dublin, I am glad Senator McFadden referred to areas outside of Dublin. We see this every day on all issues. I am not anti-Dublin one way or another. I am here to represent the taxpayers and the public. This is an enormous investment and I simply want proper analysis and proper independent studies to be published before we embark on this project. As we know, in almost every project of this size, there are huge overruns and huge underestimation of costs. I honestly believe we must have a further in-depth analysis before the Government allows Irish Water to spend that amount of money to pump that volume of water. We talked about the leaks but there is also leakage into pipes, to which the witnesses never referred, especially when there are outages. There is leakage of contaminants into the water system during repairs. Contaminants can also get in when there is low pressure and huge amounts of chlorine and so on are then used to try to clean that water. That was not addressed at all. I understand the use of gravity from Birdhill, but if Irish Water is going to pump this volume of water, the pressure it will put on the system here will cause many of the pipes to disintegrate. As was said, they are old and antiquated. Will there be connectivity on this line through the passage of the pipeline through Dublin? I have heard there will be and I have heard there will not be. Many of us could run up and down inside a pipe of such a big size. I believe it would be very hard to make incisions in it to take off connections and control the volume and the pressure. That has not been mentioned at all. It has been said on radio by some of Irish Water's spokespersons that it would serve other towns and areas on the pipelines. Perhaps the witnesses could answer some of those questions.