Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I have serious concerns about this section. We tried to address the issue of the assets and liabilities of local authorities with the previous Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Phil Hogan, including their extent, their complex nature and the method for transferring them. This is my first term in the Dáil, but I have never seen a local authority by-law, even one pertaining to a graveyard or a parking regulation, being rushed through as quickly as the earlier legislation. I knew by Phil Hogan's face that the previous Bill did not deal with the liabilities of local authorities. We sought to find out the extent of the assets over a long period. Section 10 is an attempt to regain control of a situation that has gone out of control.

Water infrastructure is very complex and involves several dimensions in addition to the network. There are various types of plant. In County Laois, for example, there are several kinds of design-build-operate, DBO, plants. I always had a problem with DBO plants because they privatised water infrastructure serving villages and small towns. Senior officials in the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government put a gun to the head of the city and county managers and local authority members. They were told they had to go with the DBO approach or they would not get funding for new plants. By involving a private company, they were able to get the money. We now find that local authorities owe €460 million to the Housing Finance Agency for these loans. That is a huge sum of money but it may not be the full story.

An issue also arises with public-private partnerships, PPPs. Portlaoise sewage treatment plant received an investment of €30 million and huge sums of money were handed over every year for its operation in addition to the moneys paid up front at considerable cost to the ratepayer, householder and taxpayer. How are PPPs going to be handled? There cannot be a one-size-fits-all solution. The original legislation was rammed through and signed into force on Christmas Day not by Santa Claus but by the President, who was just doing his job. The activation date for the legislation was 1 January 2014. At one second past midnight on that day, all water infrastructure in the State, which previously belonged to local authorities and the people, was spirited away to Irish Water. The issues of DBO and PPP plants have not been thought through properly.

Section 10 of the Bill provides that the divesting of any property, including interests in land, on the property vesting day is not to be considered a disposal of property by the water services authority concerned but as a transfer to Irish Water. This wording got around the important mechanism under section 183 of the Local Government Act 2001 so that members of local authorities could be pushed to one side by a bulldozer driven by the previous Minister. They did not have the right to exercise their powers to dispose of properties. Those who were democratically elected were marginalised. There are four Labour Party Deputies in the Chamber. How does this provision sit with them? They could not be happy with it. This provision does not sit right with me.

Suddenly, the Minister for Finance is going to make payments up to a total of €460 million "to local authorities for the purposes of repaying any Housing Finance Agency water related loans under section 5 of the Housing Finance Agency Act 1981 held by local authorities". That is a mouthful. The figure of €460 million is plucked from the air to meet a situation that was not even discussed here last year and has not even been waved through by local authority members. Members of this House have been rendered powerless to do anything about it. This is a huge figure.

There is also the question of meeting the EUROSTAT criteria. We have had many debates about that in the past week. The Government is winging this. How will this be treated by EUROSTAT and how will the figures add up? How will it sit with the imaginary conservation component of the conservation grant? The whole thing is an illusion. The Minister is creating terms to fit what he is doing and creating figures to catch up with what he should have done. No audit of the assets of local authorities has been done to date in 23 or 24 counties, not to mind an audit of the liabilities. What the Minister is doing here is serious stuff. It has not been thought through properly, so I will oppose this section.

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