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

Deputy Flaherty referred on the 12th Lock in Castleknock. The response from the Ombudsman was that it is not a serviced houseboat mooring location and therefore is not a priority location for the provision of a water tap. It goes on to say that the Office of the Ombudsman cannot ask Waterways Ireland to act outside its remit or in contradiction to planning permission or Government by-laws.

The KPMG report states that, as a consequence, Waterways Ireland, in its proposal, fixes on local property prices as being the critical relevant factor in the setting of the price for use in the form of mooring, with the stated objective of generating funds for expensive development works. In this instance, the fee, toll or charge, or whatever one wants to call it, is being set and appears to be unrelated to carrying out the task of care, management, maintenance, control and regulation, which is part of Waterways Ireland's remit in the context in which tolls or fees are being set. The KPMG report only refers to the need to fund expensive future developments, which is not the duty in the context of collecting fees or tolls for moorings. Is that correct? This is a contradiction.

I asked Waterways Ireland a question but did not get a response to it. It has spoken again about funding and planning, as it did during its appearance before the Committee of Public Accounts. Waterways Ireland is looking for a great deal of money for these expensive future developments yet we have 70 unauthorised massive developments at the moment. Can Waterways Ireland do a costing of how much is actually being generated by these unauthorised developments and how much revenue Waterways Ireland is missing out on as a result? This is about balancing books. I am afraid that if Waterways Ireland is tying fees to the property tax, they will go up. We know the State is not getting much bang for its buck from the property tax as it stands.

My next question is on a health and safety issue. Is Waterways Ireland willing to release the names and identities of legal and authorised developments so that boat owners can know that they are paying fees that are legal, authorised and above board and that they are, therefore, going to be covered by insurance? With the way things are going, I suspect that those who are not aware and are mooring boats in unauthorised areas are not covered by insurance. That has implications, I suspect, for Waterways Ireland.