Paudie Coffey (Waterford, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

This has been an interesting debate. We all agree that major investment is needed in water, which is a national resource, but we disagree on how we should deliver that investment. The Government has made it clear how it will do so by establishing a national utility called Irish Water. We are not reinventing the wheel. Back in the 1990s, a national utility, the ESB, had paper records in various regions with ad hocmaintenance plans and a utility system that was breaking down. The company undertook a huge modernisation programme. First, it established an asset management system, which recorded every asset in its infrastructure on computers, and this was all brought together under one management system. Maintenance records were then brought under this system before the company set about attracting outside investment to upgrade the network. This was the national network programme for the electricity distribution system. Almost €7 billion in investment was attracted, which the State did not have to provide.

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