Colm Keaveney (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is clear from the contributions of Government backbenchers that the future of Irish Water is not good. Irish Water is dead. For anybody who would deny that fact I repeat, judging by the contributions and participation of people who prevented a debate this time last year on this critically important subject, Irish Water is dead.

In 2011 a PwC report, commissioned by this Government, explicitly advised the Government not to proceed with the model it has proceeded with. The Government ignored the advice to set up Irish Water and hand it over to Bord Gáis. The rationale for that shift was to use Bord Gáis' expertise and internal technical supports. Why have we spent hundreds of millions of euro, from scarce taxpayers’ resources on outsourcing the expertise that the Government claimed existed in Irish Water? It has been warned consistently about this since 2011. What we have today is a quango. Information is blackened and denied to the Opposition Members tabling freedom of information requests and parliamentary questions. The Government has resisted responding to any oral question.

It is amusing that backbenchers talk about the priority of securing a Deputies’ helpline. A critically important resource is being stripped from local democracy. We had an accountable local authority and an organisation to provide answers to locally elected people but that resource has been stripped away. The Minister of State cannot argue that Irish Water is accountable. He cannot say that its executives will answer questions democratically to the Irish people. They might attend before a select group of Fine Gael and Labour Party backbenchers in committees where powerful people will sit around and decide how this should work. We need full transparency from Irish Water before Oireachtas committees. The Government has sought to cover up the inner workings of this arrangement but it should follow the example of successful investment in other contemporary utilities, particularly across the water. It has failed to do this.

Irish Water will reach a whole-time equivalent of 700 staff, with an additional 400 in the call centres, when it is complete. This does not include those working on the ground who are in local authorities. The Government has consented to the engagement of expensive consultants and their expenditure of €85 million since last April. That is a significant cost to the Exchequer. Many of those staff have been transferred from the local authority and left their pension liability with the local authority. I do not know the rationale for that, apart from what Deputy Kelleher said, it appears the Government is fattening the calf and getting it ready for privatisation. Several concerns about many aspects of the tendering process were raised in the original debate when the legislation was being rammed through the House, have never been answered. That is why the former Minister of State at the Department of Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Deputy O’Dowd, has said publicly that he is not satisfied, does not believe in the workings of Irish Water and has raised many questions which the Government must answer. At least after his demotion he has done some service to the people of this country by telling the truth. Irish Water is finished.

Irish Water staff have been placed on top of an expensive hybrid of a quango never before seen in this country. This body is not accountable to this House, apart from meeting select committees with Fine Gael and Labour Members and is not accountable to the people. We have consistently warned the Government of our concerns about this.

Under the parent company, recently re-named Eirvia, 700 staff are entitled to performance-related pay. I acknowledge RTÉ’s commitment to the subject. In its “This Week” programme last week it was revealed that staff whose superiors identified them as “needing improvement” would gain a 19% bonus. How difficult it is for people who are struggling to know that all those people must do to receive a 19% bonus is be mediocre or adequate.

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