Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Tá áthas orm go bhfuil deis agam cúpla focal a rá faoin gceist seo. The statement of the week is that of the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan when he said he only looks at the policy issues, not the detail of spending €50 million. I recall that when Members on that side of the House were over here they wanted us to account every day in this House for every patient in every hospital throughout the country. Day-in and day-out they wanted to know from us every detail, not of the big policy issues or issues reflecting €50 million, but of everything done by every semi-State body. We are now told by a Minister of this Government that he does not deal with issues relating to the spending of €50 million or €100 million and that he only lays down policy. That is incredible.

I accept that the Government backbenchers did not know that the Minister of State and Minister knew the position all along and that when they were voting blindly for what the Government was rushing through the Dáil they did so based on trust. However, they now know the truth. I expect that when a vote is called on this motion they will call on the Minister of State and Minister to account for this debacle.

I recall also that when the Health Service Executive was being established, the stated purpose of which was to address the inefficiency of having health boards across the country, the argument put forward by the then Opposition was that the HSE was a monster in terms of senior and middle management. As a member of that Government, I can assure the House that was never the intention. The intention was to bring together the health boards and to create a standard across the country, thus eliminating duplication, which is the same argument being put forward by the current Government in respect of Irish Water. When one is trying something out for the first time unforeseen issues can arise. However, this Government had the advantage of knowing what might happen. It knew there was a danger that when water services throughout the country were amalgamated what happened in the HSE might happen again. The Government was forewarned by the experience of the previous Government with the establishment of the Health Service Executive. As the saying goes, "Fool me once, shame on you: fool me twice, shame on me".

I cannot understand how we have ended up in a situation whereby water services will in future be provided by the original staff plus an additional 500 new staff despite what we have been told by Government that the idea behind a national service is the elimination of duplication, resulting in savings. I predict that within three years from now a generous voluntary severance scheme will be introduced in order to reduce the number of staff to the number in place prior to the commencement of this fiasco. This will result in millions more euro having to be paid by people.

Perhaps the Minister of State will indicate the cost of one water meter. Is it €600? As I understand it, as there are approximately 1.6 million houses in the country the total cost of water metering is approximately €1 billion. The Government in spending €100 million on setting up Irish Water has added an additional €50 to people's bills. They will also have to meet the cost of any future redundancy scheme, which I am sure the Minister of State will say tonight will not happen. All of this cost is to be met by the domestic water users in this country before they even get as much as 1 one litre of water from a tap.

I would like to make another prediction as a result of the arrangement which the Government has put in place. I see the advantage over time in building an integrated network of mains water across the country. The cryptosporidium outbreak in Galway would not have happened if we had already had such a network in place because we could have back-fed clean water in immediately. There is an argument to be made for an integrated mains system, similar to that in place for electricity. However, I predict that the part of this system that will not work is the domestic two, four and six inch pipes in rural Ireland and that, just as happens when problems arise with the telephone system, when something goes wrong with the water services they will be the longest waiting for a service. During the recent storms, the people in rural Ireland whose telephones were out of service had to wait more than a month for service to be restored.

See this speech in context