Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The point is that there will be no money to invest. The Minister is talking about the need to invest, but there will be no money. He has not made a convincing argument about where this money is going to come from. He talks about people in group water schemes investing - and yes, they did - but equally, people in public schemes and commercial enterprise made an investment in water and waste water systems through development contributions. Investment has not been exclusive to one sector of the community. There are some €11 billion worth of assets, so it is not all about liabilities. On the development contribution side, local authorities are no longer allowed to apply water and wastewater development contributions, which would be the biggest portion of development contributions. However, Irish Water has not been given that competence. A whole year has gone by in which a viable income stream has not been exploited. That money would formerly have been invested in water and wastewater schemes. Where is the money going to come from for the investment?

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