Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

We should not be here today, as we all know. We are here, I suppose, due to the failure of Government to properly plan and implement policy on an issue that should have been a positive message. That failure was due to a complete disregard for this House and, by extension, the Irish people. The Water Services (No. 2) Bill 2013 passed through this House almost a year ago to the day. Deputy Naughten and I were fortunate enough to be able to make a contribution because others had left the Chamber. On that day, I pointed out that this would come back to haunt the Government, and that is what has happened. A raft of other issues have fomented around the failure of the Government to constructively and positively deal with this issue.

From my point of view, as I have stated time and again, I am in favour of water metering and water charges on the basis that we pay for water as it stands, and it is not fair that even if I let it run down the front of my house all day I pay the same as the person next door who manages it in a responsible manner. That is not equitable. I have listened to many who follow the socialist banner or whatever, and none of them has made that point. I do not know what they are for; I certainly know what they are against. They are against everything that is presented by anybody. I have never heard them make the point that we need water metering to ensure consumers are treated in an equitable manner and there is conservation.

What we have here today will not work. What I would like to have seen - I am not unique in this, as several Government backbenchers have articulated this view to Ministers - is a lead-in period in which a grant system, something similar to what the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland provided with the warmer homes scheme, was available for those who could harvest grey water, there would be a definitive breakdown of the use by each individual of potable and grey water, and each individual would be permitted an allowance of free water based on his or her potable water needs. What we got instead was confusion about allowances. Children were to get 38,000 litres, but 21,000 litres is the figure they are talking about now. We have never had a definite portrayal of what each individual would use - I understand it is somewhere in the region of 80,000 litres, although I may be wrong - and how that is broken down between grey water and potable water. If that had been done and explained properly, I believe the vast majority of Irish people, while I will not say they would have been happy to pay - because we are never happy to pay for anything that we think we will get for free - would have gone along with the payment. Of course, we would have had the usual suspects who do not want to pay for anything and feel that everybody else should pay for what they utilise and the rich, whoever they might happen to be, will pick up the tab for them.

The Bill reflects the policies outlined by the Government a week or two ago. I have tabled an amendment for Committee Stage. In many respects it is a populist amendment, but it is necessary to drive home the necessity of examining legislation on the development of secondary treatment plants. It provides that those in the seven large urban towns should only be charged for water in - that is, 50%, the same as a dwelling that has its own effluent disposal system - because in most of these towns the sewage is just going into the local river or, in the case of Arklow, out to the sea. I had the Library & Research Service conduct a search and found that I have been raising the issue of the Arklow sewage treatment plant since 1998. The scheme has got permission, the funding has been provided and it has gone through a legal process. The only other thing that has been constant since 1998 is Mr. Brian Cody, the manager of the Kilkenny hurling team. Everything else has changed except the Arklow sewage treatment plant and Mr. Cody. They are the only two constants in Irish life. Many, including myself, would come along and say that the legislation should be changed to permit the development of this site. There was only one objector to it, who has paid over €1 million in costs. The objector has lost every step of the way, but there are a lot of steps. This emanates, I suppose, from the demand by Irish society that statutory bodies apply for planning permission following what happened with the Luggala and Mullaghmore interpretative centres in the mid-1990s. There can be unintended consequences to every measure that we take here.

Coincidentally, on Monday last I had representatives of Irish Water outside my office where a leak had sprung up and I found them decent and honourable. They were the workers who were on the service level agreement with the local authority. I spoke to them about the idea of bonuses, and bonuses did not seem too applicable to them. I am against the concept of bonuses. We think of the CEO and the various management levels, but we do not think down along the line to the worker who is on a basic wage. It is easy to throw out the baby with the bathwater.

I listened to many Members, including Deputy Halligan. The Bill has thrown up many of the weaknesses in our political system and how we operate. For example, I cannot understand for the life of me why the Government, a few weeks ago when this reached its crescendo, did not state that we could have a two- or three-day debate in the Dáil on the issue and let Deputy Cowen, Deputy Stanley or my other good friends over in the top left corner come forward with their proposals. Let them suggest the abolition of Irish Water and ask what we will have instead. We have not heard any of that. The Government came in here with a fait accompli. It put itself up there for others to hit like a dartboard, and no matter what the proposal, good or bad, it was not going to be changed. That was not the way the Government promised it would do business. They should have come in here, and it would have been in their own interest to start with a blank canvas and say, "Fine." Following on from all the debate, and if the Opposition, the majority of which will never come up with any solution, came up with a solution-----

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