Michael McGrath (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

If we examine the figures we will see that the people who will be crucified by what the Minister is introducing will be families with grown up children still living with them. He is providing a free allowance of 38,000 litres for a child under the age of 18 but many people in leaving certificate year are 18 or even 19 years of age or they are attending college for a number of years. The reality is that a household with two parents and two or three grown up children over the age of 18 could be facing a water charges bill of €600 or €700 per annum, even based on the Minister's own figures. We know that young adults will use a great deal of water because they are involved in sport, and they socialise. Their use of water will be far greater than the children for whom the Minister has provided a free allowance of 38,000 litres. The reality is that where there are more than two adults in the house, families with grown up children still in school or starting off in the workforce, they will be facing savage water bills in the years ahead. In many cases the bill for those people will be €600 and €700.

The obvious place to start in all of this is to fix the system. It is daft to have contractors installing water meters around the country when the Minister confessed that approximately 40% of the water generated is leaking from the pipes and going into the ground. That does not make any sense. The Government has access to a National Pensions Reserve Fund of over €6 billion. That could be leveraged for a commercial project such as this one, which has the potential to deliver a return in the long term by initially fixing the water system so we can eliminate the leaks. Most Irish people are fair-minded. If they have a proper quality water supply where the issue of outages is kept to an absolute minimum, they are open to paying for good quality water, but that is not the situation now facing them.

The Minister made great play about the fact that the standing charge has disappeared but the spokesperson for Irish Water made it very clear on "Drivetime" a few hours ago that, in effect, the standing charge is now being incorporated into the per litre charge that will be charged on households. How else can a situation be arrived at where the average figure is remaining the same? The average figure before the standing charge was removed was €240. The average figure now with the standing charge gone is still €240. The Taoiseach, the Tánaiste and the Minister have been going around saying that people will get a very generous free allowance. The impression was given that if people are prudent and sensible with their use of water they will not have much of a water charge. Nothing could be further from the truth. The Minister said the average use of water for an adult is approximately 78,000 litres, therefore, for two people it will be in the region of 150,000 litres. The allowance being given to that household is 20% of that, namely, 30,000 litres. The notion, therefore, that people are being given a generous free allowance does not stand up to scrutiny. People will be charged, and the standing charge is being built into the per litre charge for the water being charged on people.

A fundamental issue relates to quality. The Minister said in his statement today that Irish Water will have to take account of the quality of services provided to customers, including circumstances where services are reduced or restricted due to boil water notices etc. As the Minister is well aware, there are very localised problems in many cases. I received an e-mail the other day from a constituent who told me her tale about the quality of the water supply. There was no boil water notice issued in her area but her experience was one of broken pipes as the system is so old. She stated:

Normally, when we finally do get connected we have to run off gallons of thick, brown water and this can take as long as an hour or more. However, who is going to pay for all the water run off in the kitchen, the bathroom, the toilet etc.? Who will clean out the sludge from the cold water tank and the toilet cisterns? On occasions, even after over an hour, we still have to boil the water so that it is usable. If I am in the middle of a clothes wash, the washing has to be rewashed as clothes are dirty brown.

That is the reality for many people in terms of their experience of water quality. In many cases the quality is very poor, and we have not had a satisfactory explanation as to how Irish Water will take account of that quality issue, which is a real problem for many families.

I do not understand the reason bonuses are being built into the Irish Water structure before a single pipe in the country has been fixed. There should be no suggestion of that.

The Minister said approximately 1 million meters will be installed. As I understand it, based on the local property tax system, there are approximately 2 million properties in the country. Leaving aside group water schemes and so on the Minister should be able to provide a breakdown of how these 2 million properties are to be treated for water charges into the future.

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