Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

That is the total but the operational cost is €700 million. Irish Water will not provide it for €700 million. I am not holding up County Laois as a model, but the local authority there has been very efficient in providing water services. It has obtained money from the Department and has used some of its own development levies. It has invested steadily in water services over the past ten or 12 years. I would ask the Minister of State to do one exercise and get his officials to pull out the file to examine it. If one examines the total annual budget, one can see that those water services are being provided at a very reasonable cost. Water quality has improved, although there can of course be further improvements. Given those figures, there is no way that the new entity will provide those services as efficiently. Nor will it be able to protect ground water to the same extent as the county council can when working with the local community. Irish Water will not have the expertise that council engineers, workers and water-keepers currently have. That is a fact.

An uncontrollable Frankenstein monster is being created, which is ideologically driven. Will Irish Water be subject to information requests under the Freedom of Information Act?

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