Denis Naughten (Roscommon-South Leitrim, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak on the motion before the House. It is wrong that some Deputies are going to be paid between €20 and €60 for water on foot of today's announcement. It is morally wrong that this is the case. This evening I have dealt with the case of an elderly woman with a profoundly disabled son who lives in a council cottage. She will pay €80 for water. Her next door neighbour, a single man who retired early and has come back from abroad, with a five bedroom house and two reception rooms will be paid €20 by the Government for water. About 200,000 households with one single adult in rural areas will share a €4 million plus windfall on foot of today's announcement. That money could be used to provide 3,600 medical cards for sick children who are being denied them under the medical card system. At a time when we cannot fund these medical cards, it is morally wrong to hand out money hand over fist to people across the country for water. We are putting the cart before the horse in the proposals that have been published today.

People will pay for water and then receive a rebate if they can reduce their consumption, but that can only happen if they spend money on equipment and appliances. They do not have the money to do this. Instead of penalising those who blatantly waste water or fill up their swimming pools, we are asking people to pay up front and then try to lower their water consumption. The proposal was supposed to be about introducing metering to conserve water. The metering undertaken to date has cost €666 million. It will take 42 years to pay back the cost based on the level of water conservation alone. This is based on the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government's own figures.

During the debate a lot of people have raised the issue of the poor water supply in County Roscommon. One in four in the county has to boil water before he or she can drink it. On foot of today's announcement, however, people will still receive bills for water that they cannot drink. If they live in urban areas, they will still have to pay for water. Pubs, restaurants and other commercial users will only receive a 20% discount on their total water bills, even though they cannot use it - never mind the loss of business and the reputational damage being done to their businesses and their town.

There is a huge cost involved in providing a replacement water supply. We have heard that in Castlrea Prison €20,000 will be spent this year in buying bottled water. Roscommon Primary Community and Continuing Care which has a number of long-stay geriatric hospitals in the county will spend €14,000 in filtering its water supply. The people of Strokestown and surrounding areas in the north-east Roscommon regional water supply scheme will have to wait until August 2015 at the earliest before their boil water notices can be lifted. That is because Irish Water and its predecessor, the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, is and was not prepared to purchase temporary mobile treatment plants. Instead those living in the north-east Roscommon regional water supply scheme area must wait until the Roscommon central water supply scheme is upgraded. The mobile unit was installed 2 weeks after the boil water notice had been put in place.

We will have to wait until the mobile unit is shifted up the road. We still have no commitment from Irish Water that it will happen. Instead of buying a number of mobile units, which could be used in other parts of the country when boil water notices are in place, and installing them in Castlerea, at the north-east Roscommon source and at the Killeglan springs, Irish Water and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government let the people of County Roscommon boil water for up to two years. It is unacceptable and the ethos is to let them suffer and continue to suffer.

At the same time, 45% of commercial water charges remain uncollected. Some commercial users are not paying for water at all. There is absolute confusion following the Minister's announcement about farm families and other domestic and non-domestic users of water about what will happen from April. From deciphering the speech of the Minister, it seems people will get two water bills. One will apply to non-domestic or commercial water and the other to the so-called free domestic allowance people had been receiving until now. People do not know what is going on and it is adding to the confusion rather than clarifying the position.

When the Irish Water legislation was introduced this time last year, the only two Opposition Members in the House were Deputy Billy Timmins and me. At that stage, the vast majority of people were prepared to pay for water but not for inefficiency or profits at Irish Water. Instead of a commercial semi-State company, we should have established a not-for-profit organisation. We have plenty of experience of that in the country. We could take the public utility into public ownership and make it democratically accountable to the House. That option was refused in the House this time last year when Deputies Billy Timmins, Michael McNamara and I raised the point. The reality is that Irish Water is not working and the result is inefficiency, confusion, increased administrative costs and a loss of public trust. The rush to get Irish Water up and running by the politically driven deadline of 1 January 2014 gave us a cobbled together structure with weak foundations and which is unaccountable to the public.

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