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

Like other speakers, I congratulate the Minister and Minister of State on their appointments and wish them well. No doubt we will be harrying them continually from this side of the House in the coming period.

I am happy to support the legislation Deputy Barry Cowen has introduced today. It is a clear-cut Bill attempting to deal quite effectively with a problem that the three previous speakers have clearly outlined to the Minister. The problem is real. There are 36,000 families throughout the country with a problem. There is a particular set of circumstances in County Roscommon that can be identified and quantified. In the previous existence of the Minister and Minister of State, both would have been able to recognise the problem and accept that a solution had to be found. Earlier today, when the leader of Fianna Fáil raised this with the Taoiseach during Leaders' Questions, I was particularly taken by the point made. Deputy Martin put it to the Taoiseach that there was a point of principle, and that it concerned the question of whether the Taoiseach stood over a situation in which an entity established by the Government would charge people for a service that could not effectively be used. No matter what anybody says, it is a point of principle. Sadly, the Taoiseach did not address that in his response. I hope the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government will do so. It is a clear-cut, straightforward, obvious set of circumstances that exists. Nobody expects the Minister, Irish Water or the Commission for Energy Regulation to create an environment in which everybody with a periodic problem with his water can claim an exemption from charges, but when a clear, widespread systemic problem exists that can be identified, it behoves the system, Irish Water and the Minister to do something about it.

I want to raise a couple of other points in the very limited time available to me. The first concerns the likely impact of this development on the rental market, particularly the social rental market. We know that in the greater Dublin area, for example, the rate of homelessness is increasing arising from the cap that has been placed on the rent subsidy. Could the Minister indicate in his response the extent to which his Department has evaluated the impact the charge for water will have, particularly on the social rental sector? Will the charge have to be paid by the landlord? Alternatively, will it be paid by the tenant? If the tenant departs the property without having paid, how will the outstanding moneys be recovered, or can they be recovered?

The second point was alluded to earlier in the day by Deputy Catherine Murphy.

It is the issue of Irish Water demanding the personal public service, PPS, numbers for individuals who have received communications from Irish Water. No other public utility requires the personal public service number to be provided to it. I have been astonished by the number of people who have contacted my office about this and by the number who bitterly resent the idea that a semi-State body should demand their PPS number from them. They are even more infuriated when they consider the possibility or, indeed, the prospect that this utility company could be sold at some time in the future and that their private details could, as a result, find their way into the public arena.

Deputy Cowen referred to the issue of capital investment. None of us takes any great pride in the fact that, notwithstanding the huge investment over the last decade in public water infrastructure, there is still much more to do. I have been a public representative for long enough to know that for at least 20 years, during which each of our parties has been in government, there have been reports of up to 40% of water being lost. I was listening to that in County Kildare in the 1980s, 1990s and the 2000s. It does not appear that the very substantial investment that took place in the public infrastructure was done in such a manner as to ensure that the leakages were dealt with. We got new schemes and established schemes where no schemes had existed previously, but we certainly did not achieve the type of repair or upgrade of existing schemes that is clearly necessary. The point made very effectively by my colleague, Deputy Cowen, is that there is nothing in the budgetary proposals for Irish Water to suggest that anything will change in that respect in the next three years. That is a problem and perhaps the Minister would refer to it.

As I travel around my constituency I meet many people who live in finished or unfinished estates who raise the issue of taking estates in charge and the absence, unless it has been rectified over the summer, of a protocol addressing the responsibilities of the local authorities vis-à-visIrish Water for the taking in charge of estates. That does not appear to have been addressed yet. In so far as a protocol is now necessary, it clearly indicates that there was a serious flaw in the initial stage of the legislation. Does the Minister accept that there is a problem in that area? Certainly, my local authority says there is. What priority will he give to it and when will the protocol be brought forward to address this issue?

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