Lucinda Creighton (Dublin South East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is worth recalling as we debate this legislation the amount of taxpayers’ money spent on Irish Water. It borrowed €250 million from the National Pensions Reserve Fund in 2013; collected a further €240 million from the proceeds of property tax, which of course was never originally intended to go to Irish Water, in 2014; took €490 million from the local government fund in 2014; will take €190 million from businesses large and small every year; and will continue to collect a sum which, while substantially less than the €500 million a year originally intended, will be none the less substantial, from householders every year, at least until the end of 2018, at which point we do not know how much the bill will spiral. Over €1 billion has already been raised for Irish Water and there is much more to come.

The lack of transparency is quite extraordinary. We do not have any transparency on how much the State has paid to Siteserv, which was sold to Millington for approximately €45.42 million in cash from the State-owned Irish Bank Resolution Corporation, IBRC. A subsidiary of the company, Sierra, was awarded a multi-million euro contract for the installation of water meters.

However, taxpayers, who are footing the bill for all of this, have never been told how much they are paying to this company. That is extraordinary given that we have a Government that came to office heralding an era of new politics, democratic revolution and so on. The secrecy that has surrounded all of this is amazing. Of course, the Government essentially lost all moral authority on this issue on 18 December 2013 when it rammed through all Stages of the original legislation in a few hours, even though that legislation had been flagged since the first day the Cabinet met. Some Deputies walked out of the Chamber on that occasion, while others stayed and attempted to discuss their concerns. My colleagues, Deputies Billy Timmins and Denis Naughten, tried to raise the issue of poor drinking water and various issues relating to cost, scale and so on, none of which was heeded. The Government was determined to get the Bill through the Oireachtas before Christmas last year and that is what it did.

The Irish Water fiasco epitomises all that has gone wrong with this Government. It is very disappointing. I could talk about the issue of cronysim, the fact that unsuccessful candidates at the local elections were appointed to the board of Irish Water and others now hold positions as drivers for Ministers directly linked to Irish Water, and all the rest of it. The guillotined debate shows the arrogant attitude of the Government, which is that it knows best and has no regard for the democratic institutions of the State. It clearly has no regard for the Opposition or this Parliament, which is the forum where members of the public express their democratic intentions. It is most regrettable. All of the problems with Irish Water could have been predicted and many of them were predicted. The Seanad debate was especially instructive in this regard and it is worth reading the Official Report of that debate. It is very interesting, in particular, to read what the then Minister of State, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, said in the Seanad. His concerns regarding the new body are fairly apparent if one reads between the lines. However, the Government simply refused to engage with any of that and instead rammed through the legislation. As a result, we are where we are, as that dreadful saying goes.

This debate is no different. Deputy Aengus Ó Snodaigh noted during his contribution that there are no Government Deputies in the House. In fact, I am not aware of any Deputy speaking on the other side of the House today. The debate consists of contributions from one Opposition Member after another. It is a slightly longer version of what happened in December last year. Once again, we see the flagrant disregard of this Government for the House and its total contempt for the electorate. I do not blame the Minister of State, Deputy Aodhán Ó Ríordáin, because he is not responsible for this legislation. I do not know why the Minister or Minister of State who are responsible are not here. As I said, it is very regrettable that there are no Government backbenchers in the Chamber. They are probably out knocking on doors in preparation for a general election. No other Minister is here; Cabinet collective responsibility seems to be a thing of the past. This legislation will be rammed through just as the original Bill was rammed through last year.

It is worth recalling what Irish Water was supposed to do. The most instructive approach in this regard is to refer to the Fine Gael election manifesto of 2011 and the NewERA document of 2009, because it is from these documents that the concept emerged. The really sad thing is that it was a good concept. NewERA was supposed to "deliver real economies of scale by bringing all of Ireland's water assets under the ownership of one State company, Irish Water". It was supposed to be about an efficient utility delivering high quality water for our citizens. That has not happened. The NewERA document went on to state, "The fragmented nature of the water industry, in which 34 local authorities are responsible for investment and maintenance, also means that there are currently no real economies of scale". The Fine Gael Party's 2011 manifesto, meanwhile, proclaimed that Fine Gael in government would introduce a fair funding model - it is beyond debate at this stage that it has failed in that objective - which would deliver a clean and reliable water supply. The manifesto further states, "We will not ask home owners to pay for a broken and unreliable system and that is why Fine Gael will only introduce water charging after the establishment of a new State owned water utility company to take over responsibility from the separate local authorities for Ireland's water infrastructure and to drive new investment."

None of what was promised has happened. In fact, these undertakings are just more of the broken promises that have become so inextricably linked in the minds of the public with this Government. It is really unfortunate because there was a great opportunity here for real reform. The whole concept of conservation, which was integral to the NewERA document, Fine Gael's election manifesto and the programme for Government, has been completely dropped. This Bill is about pandering to populism rather than trying to implement a new way of doing business. The commitment to deliver clean and reliable water before implementing charges, as explicitly stated in the 2011 manifesto, has been thrown out the window. In the meantime, householders in parts of Roscommon, Wicklow and elsewhere are still having to deal with boil water notices.

The biggest joke of all is the idea that Irish Water will introduce efficiency and economies of scale. Those concepts are entirely absent from this legislation and from the whole premise of the entity that has been established. The reason for that is a body called the Irish Water consultative group, a secretive group operating behind closed doors that was established in 2012, met throughout the earlier months of 2013 and reported, as I recall, in July of that year. It was made up of officials from SIPTU, IMPACT, TEEU, ICTU, the water services transition office and the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Minutes of its meetings were never published. I have put down several parliamentary questions and received promises that the minutes would be forwarded to me. I have not received them yet, but perhaps they will come. The line from the Government was that the work of this group would lead to the development of a so-called overarching framework to facilitate collaboration between Irish Water and local authorities. In fact, it was simply a stich-up with the unions to ensure Irish Water would become a second Health Service Executive. All of the opportunity to implement reform and achieve the economies of scale and savings that were supposed to be introduced by merging the water service from the 34 local authorities into one utility was lost, because the objective was to ensure it did not happen and those objectives would fail. That is what it was all about and it is a dreadful shame.

I will now turn to the provisions of the Bill before us today. Flat charges of €160 or €260 until 2018 prove this is not in any way about conservation. I understand the roll-out of meters will continue, but they are redundant. We pointed out last year when the first Bill was introduced that charges should not be introduced until the meters were installed, but the Government insisted on proceeding. That has led us to the mess we have seen in recent months. The Government has lauded the provision included in the Bill for a so-called water conservation grant of €100. That is an insult. As far as I can see, no terms and conditions, criteria or requirements are attached to this payment. Perhaps they will be enunciated at some point, but they have not been revealed thus far. The current proposal is for a cheque for €100 to be given to householders regardless of whether they have their own water supply or are attached to a public supply. It seems everybody will receive €100. Despite its name, this grant has no apparent link with conservation and offers no incentive in that regard. It is not clear whether people will even be required to prove they are using it for some type of investment purpose. If the Government were serious about conserving water, there would be schemes introduced along the lines of those for insulating homes and so on, which would encourage people to build tanks, use brown water etc. None of that is envisaged.

The legislation also introduces a so-called plebiscite on ownership of Irish Water, with much being made of the requirement for a vote of the Dáil and Seanad to change the ownership structures of that body. It is hard to credit this provision given that both Government parties operate a three-line Whip on every vote in the Houses. No Government Deputy or Senator will vote against the Government if it were to choose to change the ownership structures. As such, the provision is entirely irrelevant unless, that is, the Government plans to adopt Deputy Peter Mathews's legislation in the new year which seeks to weaken the Whip system. However, I will not hold my breath for that.

This so-called double lock is a total nonsense; it is window dressing. In reality, this Bill is full of window-dressing and populist pandering.

There is to be a public water forum, yet another entity to be ignored by the Government. If the Government ignores this elected Chamber or institution of democracy as it has done over the past three and a half years, and particularly as it did on 18 December 2013 in the case of Irish Water, why on earth should we believe it will pay any heed to a so-called public water forum? The forum has no standing other than serving as an opportunity to pretend the Government is interested in listening to people. It is a farce and an insult. I really do not believe the Irish are gullible enough to buy this. All this ensures the Fine Gael promise regarding the Irish Water system will never be delivered. There is no conservation and there are fixed, flat-rate charges that have no link whatsoever to the consumption of water. There are no economies of scale and there is no efficiency.

It is important to highlight the secret deal of the former Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, conducted under the guise of the Irish Water consultative group. It ensures the sorts of savings and efficiencies promised cannot and will not be delivered. Just a few weeks after the Irish Water legislation was rammed through on 18 December last year, Mr. John FitzGerald of the ESRI published a report that showed Irish Water was to take on 2,000 more staff than required to deliver water efficiently across the State. He estimated — it might have been a slight overestimation — that it would cost the Irish taxpayer an additional €2 billion over ten to 12 years. It may be closer to €1.5 billion but, to be honest, it is such an enormous amount of taxpayers' money that the cost is really quite indefensible. I often recall the opportunity that existed to deliver efficiencies when merging the health boards all over the country and establishing the HSE. The then Minister for Health and Children, Deputy Martin, bottled it and gave in to the pressure from various unions and vested interests. He failed to create the state-of-the-art health delivery service we, taxpayers and all citizens deserve. The exact same thing has happened here. The former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Phil Hogan, clearly did not put a lot of thought into the legislation in the interest of getting it through. As he said himself, he was not interested in micro-managing the process. He decided to outsource decision making to trade unions, as former Taoiseach Bertie Ahern did for many years. There was such an unrepresentative group, with nobody to represent the public interest and nobody behind the closed doors to represent taxpayers' interests. The process was simply in the interest of closed-shop trade unions, whose leaders by and large represent their own interests rather than, necessarily, those of their members. The behind-closed-doors secretive group arrived at decisions on behalf of the State and former Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and presented them as a fait accompli, and the whole matter was stitched up so a 12 year cosy deal between the local authorities, Irish Water and unions was agreed. Thus, we were presented with a super-quango with 4,000 staff members rather than the 2,000 who are objectively required. It has become a sprawling monster.

I presume Ministers, just like Opposition Members, are dealing with queries and complaints in regard to Irish Water all the time. I feel sorry for some of the staff in the organisation because they have taken abuse. I do not condone abuse or the way in which Irish Water staff have been spat at, heckled and abused in certain parts of the country any more than I condone the treatment of the Tánaiste, Deputy Joan Burton, which was absolutely appalling. Many of the Irish Water staff have not been capable of responding to the myriad of complaints and problems that have arisen. Therefore, that the organisation is overstaffed in the order of 100% seems to be in no way contributing to a better or more efficient form of service delivery. Certainly, in my experience and that of my constituents, that is the case.

It is a real shame that the Bertie Ahern-style of making secret deals with the unions has led us to this. There was a much more open and transparent way. Irish taxpayers expected and deserved such a way from the Government. The money in question is not that of the Government; it is the money of the people who work, pay their taxes and contribute to the country. The have contributed enormously to the economic recovery over recent years, yet taxpayers' money is often treated as if it were confetti. It is as if it were the prerogative or luxury of the Government to buy peace and quiet for itself by spending taxpayers' money.

The addition to every household bill will be €100, for the next ten years, on foot of the secret deal. It is extraordinary that there has not been more focus on this. If the public had been aware of it, it would have been even angrier about Irish Water than it is currently

I feel really disappointed. This country was on the brink at the end of 2010 and start of 2011. The troika came into town and put in place a pretty clear programme, which was by and large implemented. It brought the country back from the brink. I give credit to some Ministers for the role they played in this regard. In just over a year, since the exit of the troika from this country, the Government has utterly forgotten and lost touch with reality. It is now practising the exact same type of politics that brought us to the brink in the first place. No lessons have been learned. We are practising the exact same crony politics and convenient, lazy politics that led us to the brink in the first place. That is a considerable indictment of the Government.

It is no surprise that the combined support for the Government parties in a poll yesterday morning was 25%. The Government can try to browbeat the electorate and threaten it over the prospect of the rise of Sinn Féin. I can assure the House that I do not relish the rise of Sinn Féin as I believe Sinn Féin economics would bankrupt and destroy the country, but I believe the Government has no one to blame but itself for letting down and dashing the hopes of the public and failing to honour its great promises, made through NewERA, the election manifesto and programme for Government. The Government promised a democratic revolution and a new way of doing business and running the State, based on efficiency, safeguarding taxpayers' money and looking out for the public interest, but it failed. In just over 12 months, it has failed. It is no wonder that we see the rise of extremists and Sinn Féin. Until the Government addresses this and starts taking seriously the concerns of citizens and representing the people who voted for it in the first place, the country will be in a very sorry place after the next election.

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