Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In 2009 the now Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine, Deputy Simon Coveney, published the NewERA policy platform of Fine Gael, which committed Fine Gael to establishing Irish Water as a utility to charge for water. This was the clear stated policy of Fine Gael at the time. I would like to know who advised Deputy Coveney at the time on this policy and whether his policy advisers had fully thought through the proposal itself. When Fine Gael came into Government it hired PricewaterhouseCoopers to advise it on the best way to establish Irish Water in line with its policy. What is interesting is that the PwC report gave 17 disadvantages as to why the Government should not proceed the way it did in establishing Irish Water as a subsidiary of a State agency, one being less flexibility in establishing the terms and conditions for new members of the workforce and in determining the most appropriate mix. Another was the level of external support required to plan, manage and execute the integration of Irish Water into an existing utility, and another that multi-utilities tend not to achieve synergies anticipated. Consequently PwC stated that on balance, it saw no compelling reason to assign responsibility for water services provision to another State agency.

The Government ignored this advice for some reason. Was it lobbied? Did somebody tell it to ignore it and go the route it eventually went? It is because of taking this route and ignoring this advice that the Government now has the bonus payment culture where people will get bonuses for underperforming. This is why the set-up costs were enormous at €180 million, including consultants. The Government was warned about this too. This is why in the full cost recovery model there are call-out charges of €188, and €282 if it is outside normal hours, which are frightening people. The other day I met a young couple starting out who are facing a €7,000 connection bill in a built-up area-----

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