Seán Ó Fearghaíl (Kildare South, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I can read as well as she. We have already read that the project will be subject to further planning and a business case review. All the planning was done before the €18 million was spent on the treatment plan, before tenders were invited for the network and before the Department accepted the tender of the preferred contractor. Irish Water appears to want to re-evaluate the whole process. Clearly it is merely a time-wasting exercise and a means of avoiding spending in an area where there has been no significant development in recent times. Were this area akin to the areas to which Deputy Olivia Mitchell referred, where there was outrageous development of 400 to 500 houses in small villages that could not be sustained, it would be one thing. However this is in a town with a population over 8,000 where local people are being forced to go elsewhere to access housing, which we cannot build because we do not have the basic, essential services to which we are entitled and which the Department had approved before this super quango, Irish Water, came into existence.

See this speech in context