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

As Deputy Ellis is not present I will have five minutes. I want to be clear about our position on water. The first thing we need to do is to secure water services in public ownership. I brought a Bill before the Dáil recently to ensure that the control of water services into the future be kept in the hands of the Irish people, not whoever may be elected to this House, because the people are sovereign. Irish Water needs to be abolished as it is not fit for purpose and should be replaced with a slimmed down public body which is accountable to the Dáil, the Committee of Public Accounts and the Comptroller and Auditor General. The main functions of this body would be to oversee and co-ordinate capital investment in water services and to ensure water quality is improved and that there is compliance with the relevant environmental legislation. It could also work closely with local authorities who would be given back an enhanced role in developing and implementing water services plans in their local areas. All of that could have been accomplished by spending less than what the Government has squandered on Irish Water, its consultants, its metering programmes, legal advisers and PR.

Hardly a day passes without more scandal and more information coming into the public domain regarding the waste and incompetence that are the hallmark of the monstrosity called "Irish Water". The most recent one is that extra money is now needed for the meters. The Government has made a series of U-turns on registration dates and on the billing system as it dawns on them that hundreds of thousands of people will not pay their water charges.

However, alongside those U-turns, they continue to hold a threat over people that unpaid bills will be taken from people's wages or social welfare payment. One thing that is certain is the electorate will be unforgiving in particular to the Labour Party, which seems intent on committing political kamikaze by ripping up its pre-election promises not to introduce water charges.

The Government is also attempting to be clever about the issue of penalties and it is to be left hanging over people until after the election. That also means that people have the opportunity in the meantime to vote for a Government that will abolish water charges. If members of our party are re-elected to this House in numbers and we are part of the formation of the next Government, we are committed to abolishing water charges, as we have done in the Six Counties. We have also provided in our prebudget submission for this year from where the shortfall in terms of the collection of water charges would come. The Government has stated that it hopes to bring in €270 million. That is the billed amount. This is based on figures for domestic water charges from the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly. However, if there is a 40% non-payment, that amount would be reduced to €162 million. If we subtract from that the cost of the collection of water charges, which is €22 million, and the so-called water conservation grant costing €130 million, the net gain would be between €10 million and €20 million, which is fantasy economics. It does not make economic sense. Even the economic basis of the Government's demand is proving to be nonsense.

In regard to the delivery of Irish Water, to take the example of County Laois, improvement schemes that were prioritised by the local authorities have now been either pushed off or pushed to the back end of the list of capital works in terms of the pecking order. The Mountmellick network extension has been sidelined. The wastewater treatment plant in the town has been pushed off the list. The Portarlington network extension is no longer a priority. The Abbeyleix network extension to take in the Portlaoise Road area of the town has been eliminated. The wastewater treatment plant in Castletown, which is urgently needed, is not even on Irish Water's radar. Irish Water's plans for counties such as County Laois show that important capital projects are not even a priority. Irish Water is not delivering in County Laois or in any other county. As for the spurious claims that the meters will encourage conservation, as things stand, one can use a million litres of water a day or a week and still get charged the same as someone using a kettle full of water.

The Government may lose face by stopping this now but it still has the opportunity to do the right thing. It should go back to the drawing board. With regard to Phil Hogan and the other people who dreamt up this, this is a mess and it is a mess for the Labour Party in particular. The Government should abolish the water charges, stop this now, start again, put a better system in place and invest the money that is being squandered in fixing leaking pipes and in water mains rehabilitation.

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