Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent)

The Taoiseach stated he does not know the level at which the charge will be set and this morning the Minister spoke about referring the question to the regulator. During Leaders' Questions the Taoiseach indicated that asking how much the Government planned to charge was as preposterous as announcing metro north and expecting to know the fares. I have put together financial models for large capital projects. The first number that one calculates is the fare and from that basis one calculates how much money should be allocated in up-front capital expenditure.

Considerable confusion has arisen around Irish Water. I welcome its creation but it will be a massive utility company employing up to 4,000 people. We need to ensure it delivers a high quality service that provides value for money. What do we know about it? Instead of a competitive tendering process there was a strange, loose application and private sector entities were not given an opportunity to bid for the entire contract or even for elements of the project, such as maintenance of reservoirs or billing. The applications from the semi-State companies do not appear to have been independently assessed. An interdepartmental group reviewed the submissions but the Minister has refused to share the submissions from Bord Gáis and Bord na Móna with the Oireachtas. I asked to see them but was refused on the grounds of commercial sensitivity. If a State body is running a monopoly contract from which the private sector is explicitly excluded, there is no commercial sensitivity. I suggest the officials are hiding behind commercial sensitivity to prevent their work from being investigated by Members of this House. I am deeply concerned about this.

With regard to the semi-States and whether they are the best and only bodies for this project, PwC carried out an independent assessment which found:

There is limited experience of water services being combined with other utilities or roads provision... [O]n balance, PwC see no compelling reason to assign responsibility for water services provision to another State agency... PwC expect that public procurement considerations will dictate that the partner would have to be selected through a public tendering process open to the private sector as well as the State agencies.

These findings have been ignored. I am not advocating that private sector entities should run our water company but they should at least be allowed to apply to maintain reservoirs, fix the pipes or run the call centres at a certain level of quality for a certain amount of money. We should be able to compare what they would charge with Bord Gáis's estimates. However, the Government will not even reveal the latter's estimate because it is supposed to be commercially sensitive.

It is nuts to spend approximately €1 billion on meters in the current economic context. It might make sense in a few years' time but it is crazy at present. Labour Party Deputies made good points about conservation, water scarcity and infrastructure for job creation but I respectfully suggest that a better way of conserving water is to build additional capacity and fix the leaks rather than invest €1 billion in the ability to charge people.

These proposals have not been subjected to a poverty impact analysis or proper financial modelling. There was an inhouse process without external inputs. There is a lack of joined up thinking in terms of developing synergies between ESB's smart metering and water metering. The absence of transparency is disappointing and in blatantly ignoring reasonable questions, the Minister has revealed a lack of accountability.

See this speech in context