Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I agree with everything the Taoiseach has just said. It makes perfect sense. The problem is that it does not reflect what is happening. The Taoiseach has said he does not agree with the service level agreements, but they are in place for 12 years. To date, we cannot get a business plan from Irish Water. When we rang them this morning to ask if we could see a business plan, they told us that there is no business plan. There is an environmental assessment, a capital expenditure programme and some other report, but there is no business plan that we can see. We have to rely on what we hear from the Cabinet. In January, we heard clearly from the Cabinet that there would be no cost savings whatsoever for the first five or six years. I welcome the Taoiseach's position, but I respectfully suggest that it does not reflect what is happening on the ground.

When I asked the Minister, Deputy Noonan, last week why the Government is abandoning thousands of Irish families that have mortgages with Irish Nationwide, he said, not unreasonably, that "nobody stands up for the taxpayer anymore". I will put aside the fact that the Irish Nationwide proposal would have benefited the taxpayer. I will ignore the fact that the taxpayer funded the payment of tens of billions of euro to bondholders. Instead, I will apply the Minister for Finance's very reasonable principle to Irish Water. In the case of Irish Water, every euro that this Government refuses to get from operational efficiencies is a euro that an Irish family will have to pay. I am very happy to take the Taoiseach at his word. My understanding of what he has said is that he believes there are savings that can be found in the first few years. Will he publish for Dáil Éireann the business plan? Will he show us what the cost base is and what the projected savings are? Will he commit that these savings can be passed on to Irish households in a reduction in the annual water charge?

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