Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am mindful of the fact that the Tánaiste was a couple of minutes late today, but we did not seek to restrain her in what she had to say.

I omitted to congratulate the Minister of State, Deputy Coffey, last night. I congratulate him now and wish him every success. He is a well respected Member of the House and I have no doubt he will give his all in that post.

I thank all Members for their contributions on the Bill. One of the most recent speakers, Deputy Bannon, summed up the content of the Bill, perhaps unconsciously from his perspective. He referred to the recent boil notice that was placed on the townspeople of Newtowncashel and said the first thing he could do was contact the CER and, as Deputy Troy said, urge that office to do something to help those people. The only thing he can do to help those people immediately is vote for this Bill today. If the House voted for this Bill, there would be no charge for dirty water going into any house. Nobody would be expected to pay to wash their children or their dishes in cryptosporidium infested water. That is the bottom line. I do not think Deputy Bannon realised it when he said it, but if he really wanted to do something for those people, or anybody else, he would vote for this legislation today. He could do something for them immediately, and they would not be charged from 1 October for the dirty water they are receiving.

We have heard various concerns. Deputy McGrath, for example, spoke about students over 18 years of age being charged the full rate. The Minister referred to the fact that the PPS numbers are being sought to establish that a household would have an allowance.

It does not matter if there is one, ten or 20 in a house. There is a household allowance and that is all there is about it. As we know, the PPS number is being sought to correlate it with the Department of Social Protection in order to see who is in receipt of child benefit and who is not. It is as simple as that.

Deputy Dara Calleary pointed to his fears which are shared by many about the consumer protection Act 1980 and noted that there might be contradictions in the Water Services Act. That leaves people open to going to court to test the validity of what is contained in the policy direction given by the Government and also its implementation by the CER.

Deputy Seán Ó Fearghaíl mentioned that, despite the best intentions and a commitment from the Minister and Bord Gáis at the time that a national audit would be carried out by the new body in order to ascertain the level of the programme in the coming years to deal with the issue of leakages throughout the system - as we are reminded so often, there is a 40% deficit - such an audit had yet to be produced and there was no roadmap for how that issue might be dealt with.

Deputy Michelle Mulherin said, from the Government benches, that she had great fears about the proposed charges and their excessive nature and that they were not affordable for many in County Mayo. I remind her that they are not affordable for many throughout the country, let alone County Mayo. Given the great level of Government representation in the county, one would have thought they would have had their fingers more on the pulse and devised a mechanism to ensure they would not hit people as hard as they will.

We heard a speech last night from the Minister with responsibility for this area, although that might no longer be the case, given that one of his first actions on being appointed was to hand over responsibility to the Department of Finance on the basis that the collection of water charges was a revenue generating exercise. That has been the modus operandi of the Government from day one, namely, the rush to charge. In that rush to charge, however, it has made many mistakes and incurred much expense for the State. This is another. The Minister read from his script last night when he gave us the history of the process by which the Water Services (No. 1) Bill and the Water Services (No. 2) Bill were brought before the House. I remind him that, in line with his efforts to explain it in the little time available to him last night, his party gave little time for the passage of that legislation because the debates on it were guillotined within an hour or so of its presentation. That is the response and attitude of the Government when Opposition Members wish to properly scrutinise such legislation.

I want to raise another issue that was raised during the debate and which was also raised this morning by a spokesperson for Irish Water who, as Deputy Robert Troy said, informed the nation that, irrespective of what we might have heard in the Minister's speech last night, nothing new was contained within it. Irish Water had sought from the CER a six-month allowance and for people to pay for up to six months in the case of a boil water notice, irrespective of the quality of the water provided. The period is three months and it has not changed. Nothing the Minister said last night was different from what we had heard before.

Persons in receipt of the application forms are asked to inform Irish Water if they believe they have a medical condition that might necessitate the excessive use of water, for which there should be some allowance. I have asked this question specifically in the last six months. I asked the then Minister, Mr. Phil Hogan, if he had met his then counterpart in the Department of Health, Deputy James Reilly, to discuss the issue and instruct his officials to devise a mechanism by which those with medical ailments who needed a larger supply of water would be compensated in any recommended pricing structure.

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