Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on this subject. It is a timely debate. The Minister said that he is demanding that the board of Uisce Éireann pull up its socks and he has set out certain things for it to do. Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil have all supported pushing water services out of democratic control, away from the Oireachtas and local councils. That is why we are in this situation. There is huge anger over the level of bonuses. It does not encourage confidence in the company, despite the review of communications announced this afternoon. To make matters worse, it was revealed today that fewer than one third of householders have filled in and returned the forms containing their personal public service numbers and other details. That means more than 1 million people have not returned their forms, which has forced Irish Water to seek an extension of the period for return of the forms to the end of November.

Given the level of anger at the bonuses, the water metering, general incompetence and lack of clarity, it is not difficult to see why those million or so households are not encouraged to comply within this extended period. The Government should use that time to implement a thorough review of its plan for Irish Water, address the concerns that have arisen about it and pay heed to the many people who regard it as a disaster.

The Fianna Fáil motion details some of the huge costs incurred in the establishment of Irish Water. Further sums will be made available in 2015. The Estimates we received prior to the announcement of the budget detail a further €200 million to be given as a capital contribution to Irish Water. One of the Ministers might inform us what exactly that is because in previous years we have not been able to get that detail.

The costs are far higher than we were led to believe they would be when the Government pushed through the legislation to establish Irish Water, from the high salaries of top executives to bonus payments, consultancy fees and the establishment of call centres. Government party Deputies have complained about this in the past week or two, but they seem to forget that they rammed through the legislation on the eve of Christmas and those of us who tabled amendments to try to knock the rough edges off it were shouted down and told we were negative. Everyone wanted to get home for Christmas, the legislation was rammed through and they went away leaving a mess behind.

The bonus payments have come under scrutiny since last weekend and are not justified given the shambles that Irish Water has proved to be. The managers gave themselves huge bonus payments, up to 19% for senior management. There was 4% for ordinary workers who exceeded the targets. Senior management took 14% for meeting targets but gave only 1.5% for those on less than €40,000, a lower percentage of a lower amount for the peasants. Their game is very clear.

When asked about it today, the Commission for Energy Regulation said this was a matter for the board of Irish Water. The Minister should take heed because the Government has handed over control of this very important resource and service. It has disempowered the 31 new reformed local authorities, this House and itself. What did we get for the €80 million paid to consultants? Local authority and private rental tenants are in a mess, while some meters are substandard. Surely the consultants should have been able to figure out these problems when paid that sort of money. We were led to believe that the Uisce Éireann contract was awarded to Bord Gáis, the Mammy and Daddy, because it had all the engineering skills and a background in rolling out a utility service. We thought there was a logic to that argument, but we discovered, courtesy of John Tierney, the managing director of Irish Water, that all this money had been blown on consultants. Why were they needed if Mammy and Daddy, Bord Gáis, already had these skills? I would love to hear the answer to that question. It has never been explained by Irish Water or the Government.

What does the call centre do? Is it observing a radio silence? A member of the public spent seven days trying to get through to it. This person is on the phone most days in the line of work but could not have a call returned or answered. The same applies to the Oireachtas helpline, which, although it may be a bit faster, poses serious difficulties. People are receiving forms addressed to previous occupants of households and there are problems with databases.

While I realise that a new system will have problems the scale of the problem is huge. A massive number of people have come to my constituency office about this, and that is just my small corner of the world. We Deputies can relate to this because it is similar to the Health Service Executive which responds by saying that our questions have been received and will be responded to in due course. I am not attacking those at the other end of the telephone line because I suspect that in most cases they do not have the answer. They are fronting for the geniuses behind the scenes who have set up this structure.

What will happen at the end of 2016, when the current allowances, the rate per litre, and the household and child allowances will be reviewed, along with the rebate to people on social welfare and the tax credits? What will be the level of household charges then? The regulator has said that the average charge without subvention will be €594 and could be higher, given how Uisce Éireann is spending money. Will the EU framework directive be used to ram that average charge down the throats of taxpayers? The allowances and budget concessions were conceived as a means to get people through a general election, especially the comrades in the Labour Party. What will happen after the general election late next year or in early 2016?

I call on the Government to go back to the drawing board with this project which was ill-conceived. It is no harm for the Government to admit it went down the wrong road. We can all make mistakes. This was a huge mistake. Unfortunately, the Government did not listen to the advice from this side of the House or from economists and others involved in governance who critically questioned it. The Government’s colleagues in local government have been questioning it this week in their council chambers. They claim to be in revolt because they are getting a pasting from the electorate about it. The Government has taken away democracy.

There are some examples in other countries of services being taken out of the hands of corporate structures and put back under the remit of local councils and municipalities.

There is precedent for that. The Government has gone down the wrong road in this case. This is a monster that cannot be handled. This is not the ESB. This is not Bord na Móna. This is not the old Department of Posts and Telegraphs. It is none of those. This is a different baby that the Government has created. It has turned into a monster and it needs to be stopped in its gallop.

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