Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

First, the local authorities have done a good job in their management of the water resource. The engineers and staff of the local authorities who have worked on water down through the years certainly have done a creditable job. However, there were 34 different water authorities nationwide and just as one would not, these days, have 34 different local distributors of electricity or gas, as was the case in the past when there were local generators and distributors of electricity, it does not make sense in the modern world to have such a multiplicity of deliverers of any utility, including, in this case, water.

There are a number of issues pertaining to water that must be addressed, the first of which is the adequacy of the supply. We have been fortunate and it has been a credit to the local authorities in Dublin that we have not ended up with a water crisis in Dublin. Over the greater Dublin area, not just the city itself but the greater Dublin catchment area, as the development of the city continued and as it grew, there was insufficient investment in the delivery of water to supply the people adequately. Consequently, we have been fortunate to avoid a crisis in that regard. Irish Water will be investing in the delivery to ensure there is an adequate supply of water. We have not been so fortunate in other cities. In Galway, for example, people ended up with a serious problem some years ago. Similar problems exist in other parts of the country, where the quality of water is substandard and this requires investment. This is why there must be a fund to underpin the spending that must take place to ensure the continuation of an adequate supply of clean water. The system of charging for water that the Government has brought in, which is based on usage, which takes account of family size and medical conditions as well as people who have problems with ability to pay, is a reasonable arrangement. Instead of some of the scare stories that are being told to people in this regard, Members need to provide people with the facts.

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