Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I second that. I commend he work of the secretariat here and, in fairness to Tipperary County Council, it has come back with as much as it can. It has gone above and beyond would would be expected, and I thank its representatives. We have a good engagement with them here. The Chair is right. The fence seems to be moving all the time. It just seems to be a pressure test from Irish Water all of the time. There does not seem to be any will to go in. There always seems to be an excuse that it cannot go in or there is some technicality. Yes, things have changed over the years but it is a two-way system, pardon the pun; water in, water out. Reading from the raw reports, Mr. Coskeran actually paid for his own CCTV cameras to go up those lines. He had everything done. I worked in sewerage and water. If I go back to 1986, I can name a sewerage system that we put in and Irish Water are quite happy to use it at the moment. I am sure it is has been deteriorating. I am not saying this one has been but Irish Water seems to be able to pick and chose and I do not think it is fair. It has now been very frustrating for Tipperary County Council as well as for Mr. Coskeran. I suspect this is replicated in that county with other small estates and around the country in other small estates. This is what is holding up progress. I will try to be brief on this but I can remember going back to a country development plan in Cork County Council at one stage where there was a proposed development in Monard outside Blarney. That is not even my constituency but it was part of the county development plan which had proposed X amount of houses, schools, even a church and the whole lot. What scuppered that whole deal was Irish Water because it refused to service the plan at the time. That is wrong. I can actually remember being on the record asking the CEO at the time in Cork County Council if we now had a situation where an entity or company such as Irish Water were dictating to the county council where it can and cannot develop. Yes, there may have been a few mistakes made to and fro between Mr. Coskeran and Tipperary County Council, but at least through engagement and dialogue - engagement is the big word here - they have resolved as much as they possibly could. Then we are being stonewalled again because there is very little engagement with the other side, in this case Irish Water. After what we have discussed here, the last thing I want to see coming in here is a statement from Irish Water saying this is the rule and this is X, Y, and Z. That was not the rule in 1986, 1996, 2006, and 2016. Things change but surely there is a commonsense approach here. I do not think Irish Water is going to be at a loss in doing these works. It does get enough of taxpayers' money to carry out this work. It also has an obligation to do the right thing and that is what makes it very frustrating for me. There is the other aspect of it as well which is the mental anguish on people. It is grand if businesses want to make a profit but a bit of commonsense is needed, remembering that at the end of the day there are human beings with feelings here who want to get on with their lives. They thought they had done everything absolutely right. Years down the road they have the stress and the strain and the additional moneys they have spent which is probably all down to a lack of engagement, common sense and of humanity. I certainly agree with the Chair about bringing Irish Water in here and getting some accountability for both Tipperary County Council and for Mr. Coskeran.