Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

This is a very serious amendment. We know the Water Services (No. 2) Act was in the main passed without discussion, scrutiny or adequate questioning. It was assumed then that the assets and liabilities of local authorities would in their entirety transfer to Irish Water. I know we and others put down many parliamentary questions in the intervening period seeking details of those liabilities and who exactly would be liable to repay them. We were conscious of agreements entered into for the maintenance of plant and treatment plants which were previously the duty of local authorities. We never got the sort of answers that gave us a conclusive indication of what the situation was.

We are now saying that the Department of Finance will make €460 million available to pay off those debts. When is this to be done and when was it decided? Has an audit been conducted on the breakdown of those funds countrywide? Will this arrangement impinge on the Irish Water model for off-balance-sheet borrowing under the EUROSTAT market corporation test? Will it be regarded as a further subvention on the part of the Government in addition to the 44% subvention which it assures us will allow Irish Water to pass the test?

We will have to stray slightly from the exact content of the amendment to consider the broader picture. This relates to another question I have put to the Minister on several occasions, in respect of which I am not sure I have been given the correct answer. What is the total value of the assets of the networks previously owned by local authorities and now being transferred to Irish Water? Have all of these assets been transferred? My engagement with several local authorities suggests that a full valuation of the assets has yet to be carried out. The figured bandied about for the subventions offered by the Government to compensate local authorities for the loss of income from commercial rates was approximately €60 million. Dublin and Waterford are the only counties in which full valuations have been carried out in recent times. The Government has to come clean on this. It would be ill-advised to approach the EUROSTAT test without detailed answers to these questions. Given that it is failing the test in this House, I have no doubt it will fail the test in Europe. In the event that this model, which is built on sand, fails the test in Europe, it will collapse and the Government will collapse along with it.

We learned today that the liabilities associated with the assets of Irish Water, for which we do not have full details 12 months after the legislation was brought into effect, will not necessarily transfer to Irish Water. Some €460 million of taxpayers' funds will be used to pay the outstanding debts. I do not know when this will happen or to what locations or infrastructure it relates. The Minister is asking us to accept this amendment in the absence of information about the other liabilities that may exist in addition to the €460 million relating to the Housing Finance Agency. What other maintenance contract agreements are in place throughout the country? Would it not be appropriate for the Minister to inform the House about this before introducing an amendment in the last hour of the last day? We heard threats throughout yesterday and today that if we do not allow the legislation to be guillotined, we will be hit with the charges that previously applied. We are supposed to take the blame for that even though we are only now learning that €460 million is being moved from the Department of Finance to meet liabilities to the Housing Finance Agency. Is that the full extent of the liabilities? Perhaps I am missing the point completely, but I am shocked at what I have seen in this amendment.

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