Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I find that pretty extraordinary because the money concerned is tax receipts. The Government in levying this unpopular, regressive austerity tax tried to neutralise opposition to it by saying that all the moneys collected would go back into local areas and services. We then discovered last autumn that not a single cent would go towards local services but would be used to meet the start-up costs of Irish Water. I find it amazing that given the change in regard to how and where this money will be spent the Minister for Finance did not discuss with the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government the amount that would be required in respect of the start-up of Irish Water. Does the Minister for Finance have no role in spending of that level of expenditure, which he has just informed us is €490 million, €80 million of which we recently discovered will be spent on lining the pockets of consultants? I still do not believe we have been given an explanation in terms of whether that spend was value for money. Enormous amounts of money has been spent on lining the pockets of consultants and it is difficult to see what precisely we are getting for it.

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