Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Today, those in government are asking the people to trust them and to trust Irish Water. They will have a major difficulty in doing that because of the legacy of what has happened in the past year and a half.

We were told Irish Water would be partnered with Bord Gáis to save money, but it transpired subsequently that the amount to be spent in consultants' fees was known by the then Minister. From beginning to end, this has failed the test of trust. What we are seeing here today is the Government in a serious climb-down because of the game changer that was the 100,000 people on the street. Deputy Shane Ross was right that they were people who would not normally protest. There was no major media campaign in advance to let people know this large demonstration was to happen. It was organic. It happened mainly on social media where people swapped information.

I was on the demonstration and there was a sense of solidarity which I have not encountered in the four or five years since the country went into the bailout. People were asking why they had not done it before. They will look at today's motion as an introductory offer. They know the costs will rise, the State subvention will reduce and that borrowing costs will have to be met by the customers of Irish Water. They are not fools but are offended at being taken for them. They needed clarity and certainty not PR speak and they were certain that this was the straw that would break the camel's back.

I went into areas that would be regarded as well off and I was astonished at the number of people who said it to me on doorsteps. I asked if they were going to go out and protest, but while most of them were not, they were offended by the debacle that was Irish Water and the fact that the Government would not listen when complaints were made throughout the year about the problems being encountered. It goes back to the PPS numbers issue, which I raised last January at committee level, and things like taking estates in charge. Even now, the Government is looking at the numbers and the Minister referred to short-term emotion and anger or long-term prudence and commonsense. To refer to prudence gives the impression that there will be some money, but the Government is simply going to fund a major quango. I am not sure it will get through the EUROSTAT rules. I have quite a fear that in the same way we had the troika thrown back at us, if it does not get through those rules, we will be back here being told it was EUROSTAT that would not allow us to do it.

There is a vast hole in the numbers here. The local government fund was ring-fenced in 1997 to fund services, including water services, and it has been cleaned out. There was €999 million in that fund in 2009 and there is €110 million in the fund now. Just this year, €490 million was transferred to Irish Water. I am looking at where the Government is going to get the funds to fix the pipes. It is quite interesting when the Minister talks in his speech about the need for meters. In an ideal world, I would say there was some sense in them, but the Minister of State with responsibility for public enterprise said in 2011 that it made no sense to spend hundreds of millions of euro on metering a leaky system. There are different experiences nationally with leaky pipes. In my constituency, where there is a fairly modern housing stock, the leakage rate is not of the order of 40% but is in the low 20s. One must target the approach to leaks in areas where there are Victorian pipes. It does not require the installation of a meter at either end of a 100 year old pipe to determine that there is a prospect of a leak.

People are also offended by the metering programme and to which the contract has been awarded. They question how the same names keep cropping up over and over again to get great benefits like the second mobile phone licence for example. Here we go now with a major metering programme putting us into a contractual arrangement which is, presumably, impossible to get out of.

This stinks to high heaven. There is no confidence in Irish Water and people do not want to be Irish Water customers. There is a real need to go back to the drawing board. There will be no acceptance of Irish Water and there will be a great many people on the streets on 10 December. I wonder what the Government will do then.

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