James Geoghegan (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael)

Perhaps it is not something that has previously come to Mr. Gleeson's desk. I genuinely mean this to be helpful. Ms Attridge said earlier that Irish Water has changed its public representative system and she hopes public representatives are feeling the change. I do not think they are. I do not know if Irish Water has asked public representatives. My dealings with Irish Water, first as a councillor and now as a TD, have proved challenging. I am not here to lambast its representatives about it, but I do not think Irish Water's systems function the way we, as public representatives, operate, either at a council level or a TD level.

Those of us who can work hard find the official we might have a relationship with in the local authority who is talking to Irish Water, who can very often solve the problem for us, or we might know someone in Irish Water. It's all very higgledy-piggledy, whereas if Uisce Éireann were subject to parliamentary questions, Members throughout the Dáil would be able to just simply submit that question, which would be referred from the line Minister, and it would have to reply in ten days, in the same way the HSE and NTA do. It would assist quite a lot.