Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It looks like Irish households will pay €250 a year to begin with. Factoring in the kinds of exemption the Taoiseach has referred to, approximately €300 million will be raised. Ireland's water infrastructure costs approximately €1.2 billion to run. We know there are a great many inefficiencies in the way it is run currently. There are 33 separate entities involved and layers of management and administration that those working in the service say are not needed. There are plenty of outdated monitoring and control systems. How much money could be saved by doing this properly?

It was estimated that in Northern Ireland, approximately 40% of the cost base could have been saved by updating the water service. Scottish Water achieved almost exactly 40% savings in the first five years after upgrading its system. Let us be conservative and say that Ireland can only achieve 25%. It would mean a saving of approximately €300 million, which is almost exactly the same amount that will be raised from water charges. Instead, we learned in January that Ireland is applying a different approach and that service level agreements are being put in place for the next 12 years. The entire cost base is being locked in. Unlike Scottish Water's saving of 40%, there will be no cost savings in Ireland over the next five to six years. We were told by the Cabinet that saving money early on could only ever be achieved in a mythical country. To the best of my knowledge, Scotland exists.

The Government's approach means the new water charge will not pay for water or to upgrade infrastructure. The only thing it will pay for is political expediency. The €250 bill will not be for water, it will be a bill for unnecessary cost. It is a bill that effectively says, "We refuse to improve the operational effectiveness of the system so we are going to charge you instead". It effectively says, "We have decided not to implement the kind of reform that we promised the people before the election". The Government will not be charging Irish households for their water, it will charge them to maintain hundreds of millions of euro in unnecessary costs.

Does the Taoiseach accept that savings in such an inefficient system can be found in the first five years? Will he instruct Irish Water to find these savings on behalf of the people and agree to reduce the water charges to households by whatever amount of savings can be found?

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