Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

It is accepted by many members of the Government that the handling of the water meters project has been diabolical and a shambles. The Minister for Transport, Tourism and Sport, Deputy Varadkar, has been upfront in apologising for the confusion. Flat charges, metered charges and usage charges were proposed and the prospect of cutting off water supplies was articulated by Ministers and Government spokespeople. We learned from the executive manager of Dublin City Council last week that up to 300,000 houses could not have water meters installed. More alarmingly, given the Taoiseach's comments last week in the Dáil, there is a divergence in the decision of the Government to ignore the central recommendations of the PwC report, on which it spent over €130,000 to recommend how a model would be established. In particular, the recommendation to set up an independent new utility company to oversee the water meter programme was ignored. It is clear from the PwC report that there will be significant job losses. Last week, the Taoiseach dismissed this aspect in a one sentence reply to me. I do not know whether the Taoiseach has read the PwC report and I will quote from it-----

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