John McGuinness (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

In the context of what was done before the Government's time, during the initial stages of this long debate, the Government and Department were warned time and again about the difficulties they would face in the establishment of Irish Water. Another debate was conducted in the Chamber while the Government parties were in opposition and continued when they went into government. It was about the burning of the quangos. They were all to go. The Government has just committed itself to the creation of one of the biggest, most costly quangos that has ever been established in this country.

The Government has rowed back on the charges and plan it outlined earlier. I do not know any business that would turn around mid-stream and do what the Government did yesterday. Having established the business model based on the income it was going to achieve from metering water, it spent more than €500 million installing the meters. Then, it reduced the cost of the water to a point where I cannot see how it will sustain a company the size of the one created based on the older cost model which was far greater than the cost the Government announced yesterday. Nobody would do it.

During the Order of Business, the Tánaiste said it would cost €2 billion to roll back on Irish Water. Somebody independent - not the Government nor Opposition - must take all the Government's figures and analyse them. Yesterday, the Minister spoke about his legacy. While I do not know about that, let us talk about the Government’s legacy. Given that the Government has made such a shambles of the first initiative on Irish Water, and compounded the problem with yesterday's announcement, would it not ask somebody to analyse the figures and do a value-for-money audit? Would the Government not hand all the paperwork to the Comptroller and Auditor General and ask him to analyse and present the figures in an unbiased and independent way to the Irish public so they can see, at first hand, the costs of it? Having listened to the contributions made by Irish Water to committees, the cost is staggering.

Irish Water does not know where it is going. The Minister's predecessor told the company the direction in which it was to go and specified the model and costs, however, yesterday, the Minister took the floor out from under the company. It cannot survive on the amount of money the Minister described to us yesterday. Irish Water should be abolished. Let us return to where we came from, namely, the county councils. The Government has handed all the corporate knowledge the county councils had to Irish Water for free. It has handed all the local authorities' assets, which belong to the Irish people, to Irish Water. Then, the Government added insult to injury by asking the Irish people to pay for it. It is unbelievable that this is what the Government has achieved.

Quite rightly, the Irish people will reject what the Government suggested yesterday and demand that the old structure, properly funded, would do the trick. The Government is falling into the same trap as others, namely, off balance sheet. It is the same thing; it is taxpayers' money. If Irish Water goes broke tomorrow morning, the Government, or rather, the Irish taxpayer, will pay for it. It is just a fancy way for the European Union to doll up our books and make them look good across the European Union and it will not work. The Government talks about legacy. Would the legacy of the Government not be better if it was really transparent and asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to analyse the figures? It should also put Irish Water under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General so that it would have direct accountability to the House. Although I do not agree with Irish Water, which should be abolished, given that the Government is intent on going forward with this, Members of Parliament have a right to examine the spend of Irish Water and to know where it is going. The Government says it is full of interest in reform. This would be a fine piece of reform, offering transparency and accountability, that it could achieve with the stroke of a pen.

I have heard it argued here this morning that the meters will measure the leaks. County councils all over the country have been putting meters on their mains pipes to measure the flow of water and identify whether it increases or decreases and indicate whether a line may have to be inspected. Nobody would pay the amount the Government has paid to install the water meters just to locate a leak. What the Government is telling people is untrue. If anybody who is paying for water wants to identify a leak, they will get in a bit of technology and do it, or their meter will show a graph and they will have to pay.

There are other hidden costs, for example the 20 pages a customer must fill out to register a grease trap, at a cost of €390 to be paid to Irish Water. The nonsense the Government put about here yesterday was just that, nonsense. If the Government removed the layer of bureaucracy it has created and the cost involved, it would reduce it to the same management structure the councils have, but funded. There would be no Irish Water and no charges. It can be achieved through figures substantiated the Comptroller and Auditor General, if the Government asks him, and then we will all know what we are debating.

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