Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

It is disappointing the Minister is not in the House considering the water crisis we have had again this winter following on from a different type of water crisis last winter which was caused by flooding. Again our water infrastructure has been exposed for what it is - outdated, inadequate and broken. Our management structure of water delivery systems has also been again exposed as inadequate for the country's needs.

What Fine Gael is trying to do is to put forward a solution rather than beat the Government over the head for the lack of reform it has introduced in its decade or so in government. We have been putting forward this solution for almost two years. We agree with the Minister that we need to invest significant sums of money upgrading a totally out of date water pipeline infrastructure of 25,000 km because at least 40% of it is not fit for purpose. The proof of that is that almost 50% of water in many counties leaks through the pipes into the ground before it gets to its destination. That figure has increased following the two extremely cold spells we have had. When people on radio, television and elsewhere say that supplies of water cannot meet demand, what they are saying is that part of that demand is water leaking through pipes into the ground. It is not to people's homes or businesses. A significant portion of demand for water usage, which costs us all a fortune to produce, simply leaks into the ground. That is a waste this country can no longer afford and it is also resulting in people's water being turned off while we try to contain the level of leakage in cities such as Dublin, Cork, Limerick and Galway and in many rural areas.

We agree with the Minister that we need to spend considerable sums of money and we need to find ways to finance upgrading the infrastructure over time. We also agree with the Minister that we should put in place domestic water meters as part of that process. What we do not agree with the Minister on is how he proposes to do that, which is to put more taxpayers' money into a management system which is neither working nor delivering. We are financing water delivery to 4 million people through 34 local authorities. How can it make sense to use 34 agencies to deliver water to a population which is the same as that in a reasonably sized European city? It makes no sense and as a result when we have a crisis, nobody takes charge or responsibility. There was a crisis in Northern Ireland and the chief executive officer of the company involved had to resign. We had just as big a crisis here but nobody resigned because nobody was in charge.

Some 34 county and city managers take responsibility for their own patch. Many of the water engineers and managers in local authorities are doing a really good job considering what they have been asked to deal with. However, one cannot have a national response to a water crisis if one asks 34 agencies to respond in their own patches without having co-ordination between all those agencies. It cannot be done. There is duplication and wastage and it does not work.

The country cannot afford the €2.8 billion the Government proposes to spend over the next three years on water infrastructure. We do not have it and we cannot borrow it, so we need to find new ways to finance this infrastructure, to put in place a national water strategy and to deliver water in a co-ordinated way through one entity. Fine Gael proposes to set up a new State company to build a new water infrastructure which we would finance through commercial borrowing and supplement it by raising money through the National Pensions Reserve Fund and selling certain State assets to help the capital expenditure programme. That is realistic and costed and it makes sense.

I cannot understand why the Minister does not agree with that constructive suggestion. The excuse or reason he gives for not agreeing with it is absolutely farcical. He says he cannot agree with what Fine Gael is saying because it is the thin end of the wedge to privatising our water networks. What a load of nonsense. If that was the case, we would never had set up a State company to roll out telecommunications infrastructure when that was needed. We would not have set up ESB when we needed to roll out electricity infrastructure when that was needed. We would not have set up Bord Gáis when we needed to roll out gas pipelines across the country to deliver gas to towns and cities.

Just because one proposes a State owned company to operate on a commercial basis does not mean one wants to sell it. Water infrastructure is a strategic State asset which Fine Gael in government will hold on to. However, we want to manage, develop and invest in it in a commercial way which makes sense.

We want to reshape the way in which we pay for water. Currently, we spend approximately €1.2 billion per year through capital and current expenditure to provide clean drinking water and 40% to 50% of the water leaks through the pipes. People can do the sums for themselves as to just how much wastage there is. Anybody who thinks water is free because a lot of rain happens to fall in Ireland is deluding themselves. Each time somebody turns on the tap to fill up a glass, it costs the State almost as much as it would cost Ballygowan if it was to give one the water for free in a Ballygowan bottle. In some cases, it probably costs the State more because it needs to treat and transport the water along a long broken pipeline infrastructure to get it to one's tap. The same applies each time one flushes the toilet. One uses approximately ten litres of water each time one flushes the toilet. There are 1 million people in Dublin. How much water do they flush down the toilet? How much money and State funds do we flush down the toilet each day?

We have an insane approach to water management, delivery, conservation and valuation. Fine Gael will change that in government by putting in place a commercial entity to manage a water network and to bring large amounts of water from parts of the country which have excessive amounts of fresh water which can be treated to parts of the country which are short of water, such as Dublin. When we wanted to put a national motorway in place efficiently, we set up the National Roads Authority to do it because we could not do so through all the local authorities. We need to do the same now with water.

We agree that we need to introduce domestic water meters and we will grasp the difficult political nettle of proposing water charges in the future, but only if we put in an efficient delivery system that ensures homeowners are only paying for the cost of the water they use and not the tens of thousands of litres of water that leaks through the pipes every day on the way to people's homes, which would be an unreasonable request.

We will be up-front in telling homeowners that the taxpayer will continue to pay the majority of the cost of delivering water to their homes. People will be given a free quota of water based on the average daily usage per person, but if they go above that average on the user pays principle, the more water they use the more they pay. People who wash their cars, sprinkle their lawns or have swimming pools will need to incur the cost of that rather than asking the taxpayer to do so, which continues the fallacy that somehow water is free in Ireland; it is not. We have a broken infrastructure that we need to fix. We have a way of fixing it through a State-owned company that can manage, develop and plan for an efficient treatment and delivery system for water and the Government should listen to our proposal.

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