Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to participate in the debate on water sector reforms. Before I make my contribution, I join in the condemnation of the treatment of the Tánaiste and her staff at the recent event in Tallaght. I remind the House that in advance of UN International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women on 25 November, the 78 women murdered by a partner since 1966 were remembered both inside and outside the House today. On this occasion, the same Deputies who approve of Saturday's events will, without a hint of shame, offer their unconditional support for today's reflection. I find that somewhat hypocritical.

This country has a proud and honourable tradition of peaceful protest, but what happened last Saturday was not peaceful, but intimidating and abusive. I believe the detention of people against their will by a handful of misguided and easily manipulated people, at the beck and call of a Deputy of this House, was illegal. The power to detain lies solely with An Garda Síochána and the courts. I suspect that if the shoe was on the other foot, the shrieks from the Socialist Party and the triple A alliance could be heard from Havana to Pyongyang. Obstruction, detention, spitting and the hurling of vile homophobic, misogynistic abuse is not peaceful and no amount of chanting "peaceful protest" will make it acceptable or peaceful.

The majority of people who protested peacefully in Dublin and elsewhere have been appalled by the behaviour of a small minority, whipped up by elected Deputies who drive around with a megaphone in their car boot seeking to inflame situations - like the roving medicine men of the travelling circuses peddling snake oil and miracle cures - and then retreating to their gated communities and privilege, leaving the communities they represent without a remedy or solution. The guys from St. Michaels and other private fee paying schools would laugh with pride.

This is a fresh start for Irish Water. It will provide certainty, affordability, simplicity and will, as the metering programme rolls out, provide for conservation and the potential to decrease the price of water. This delivery of what has correctly been described as a human right is another example of reform. While it is a human right, I do not recall it recorded in any document, proclamation or Constitution that this right should be free. It has never been free. I recall that in the house in which I lived in 1966, the last water bill for that house - £145 - was paid for domestic water supply for the year. This was replicated around the country, but Dublin Deputies might not be familiar with that. People were happy to pay for their water supply then.

I was elected to Cork County Council in 1999 and my experience in regard to water services since then is that the situation is shambolic. The system was broken. Castletownbere, where I live, is one of the 42 towns mentioned in the annex as one discharging raw sewage into the local harbour without treatment. In 1974, proposals were first made for this under the existing system. Frankly, people who want to retain that system live in fantasy land. Local authorities have delivered some significant schemes, such as that in Skibbereen, but the funding model through which such schemes were delivered is broken. Local authorities can no longer borrow to deliver schemes and can barely address many of the day to day maintenance issues of the water supply and waste water networks.

This is the situation in a background of ever increasing and appropriate supervision and regulation through EU directives. The patchwork quilt of 31 different local authorities providing water services, 31 different directors of services with 31 different management structures that deliver 31 different priority levels made for an expensive, unwieldy, chaotic environment where even routine obligations were lost in a quagmire of confusion. The system suffered from under-investment, bureaucracy and competing local political priorities that only succeeded in allowing for a situation where cryptospiridium, nationwide boil water notices and e-coli contamination took root. The system suffered due to a cast-iron water network 70 years beyond its sell-by date, internally caked with rust with a diameter little more than a pinhole and from asbestos pipes that broke on a weekly basis.

The system was broken and not fit for purpose. Many would have that situation continue. We saw such situations on the Aran Islands and Cape Clear Island this summer when they ran out of water as a result of the lack of investment. One prominent islander on Cape Clear Island described the pipe network, because of all the joints, breaks and sleeves, as being similar to an Arab's rosary beads.

This is only a taste of what lies in store for people in the greater Dublin area. The ability to provide water for the capital is on a knife edge and, while this has been known for years, the issue has not been addressed. How could it be when one looks at the existing structures? This cannot go on. The Government is committed to addressing the myriad problems crippling the delivery of a fit-for-purpose water and wastewater network. The decisions it is taking are not popular or easy, but they are necessary. Some would have us believe all is well in water services, that the situation should remain as it is and that the water we have available in Ireland in such abundance will always be clean and flow freely, but they are living in a parallel universe. They might let me know some day how they got there. A break from reality from time to time will do no one any harm.

The same people also claim that water is paid for through direct taxation. The truth is it is partly paid for through the Exchequer, which contributes a fraction of the investment required just to maintain the network. There is little or no acknowledgement of the non-domestic or commercial sector that has always paid for the provision of water and wastewater services, from small sole traders to the largest multinationals and every farm in the country connected to a water supply. They have paid dearly for water over the decades, yet they are witnessing a decline in the network, despite their best efforts. They understand the investment in the network needs to increase greatly just to bring it up to an acceptable standard. How is this to be achieved? Those opposite would have us increase income tax to raise an extra €1 billion annually, with almost €3 billion to be raised up-front. There are 800,000 households in the country which are not connected to a public water supply or a public wastewater network. They pay their taxes also. They provide their own water and wastewater infrastructure at their own cost. Are we seriously asking these 800,000 households to accept a 3% to 4% increase in their taxes to pay for somebody else's water supply? We hear the rhetoric about equality in society. Those from whom we hear it might like to give us the benefit of their wisdom and explain to us how they can truly justify this as being fair or equal.

The establishment of Irish Water on the principle that the user should contribute will be the foundation from which the decades of under-investment in water services can be reversed in a coherent, rational and consistent way, in respect of which funding can be accessed in a manner that would be impossible were we to sit on our hands and wait for the inevitable collapse of what remains of the network. The pricing regime being proposed is affordable, will give certainty into the future and will provide for householders to conserve more and pay less than the maximum net amount of €60 for a home with a single adult or €160 for a home in which there is more than one adult.

We have listened to the people. We have made mistakes and there is no denying this issue has been handled appallingly, but we have learned. The bonus structure and the requirement to send PPS numbers to Irish Water have been scrapped. There will be clarity, as well as certainty, for many years to come in terms of capping of charges and the structure of the water supply model to be used. Importantly, Irish Water should not and will not be privatised. It would be a brave Government that would decide in the future it was going to amend legislation and not allow a plebiscite to happen.

The ongoing metering programme will lead to conservation measures and the identifying of leaks within the curtilage of individual homes and will deliver results. I recall one householder ringing the Joe Duffy show last month, having discovered after the meter had been installed that an inordinate amount of water was passing through their home. After calculation, it was found that three months of inaction had led to 1 million litres of treated drinking water flowing from the house into the gravel beneath. This was only discovered after the installation of the meter. These are the conservation measures about which we are talking. It is not about shutting off the water when brushing one's teeth or the brick in the cistern. This will lead to identifiable and real conservation measures within the home. The idea of district and estate metering is ludicrous if we are talking about conservation. We will get one chance to do this right and this is it. I absolutely support the long-term programme of metering every single house and business in the country in order that we will know exactly where we are with an expensive resource.

The future of water services is and will be a challenge. We are fortunate to have an abundant supply. While it requires treatment and investment, this will put Ireland in a better place by providing a clean and consistent supply for homes and the capacity to attract further and future investment and jobs for the people equally throughout the country.

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