Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Okay. When I challenged the appointment of Mr. Tierney by the former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, and asked why an engineer or other person with experience in water had not been appointed to the position, I was assured Mr. Tierney was the right man for the job. While it appears that this was a political appointment, I agree that throwing Mr. Tierney under the bus would not solve any problems.

The Taoiseach said that, as in the case of SUSI, Irish Water needs time to settle down. If that is what he truly believes, he is missing a great deal. The structure of Irish Water is wrong. While Irish Water is taking over responsibility for water and waste services, it is not taking over responsibility for surface water, storm water and flooding. The reason for this is because one cannot charge people for storm water or flooding. It is not possible to make any money out of doing that, and as flooding is unpredictable, it would be unattractive to a buyer. The Taoiseach has assured us the service will never be privatised. If he is so sure of that, is he prepared to amend the Constitution by way of referendum to ensure that remains the case, as was done in Italy when 96% of people there voted against Berlusconi's attempt to privatise water services?

Irish Water was established on the advice of consultants that a new model rather than the local authorities should be responsible for water services. Despite that €85 million was spent on advice, it turned out to be useless and included protocols that did not work, including a protocol in relation to connections which was a total nonsense. Irish Water is in communication with the local authorities on how to make these protocols work. It is at stage five of the tweaking process.

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