Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am sorry, but it is hard to keep a cool head sometimes. One of the Deputies on the Government side said that rural Deputies did not sign this motion. I am from Wexford and I did. We do not have good drinking water in Wexford and there is significant raw sewage going into our rivers and the sea and we are not happy about that. The situation has not improved in the slightest in the past four years.

There are huge problems between Irish Water and the Wexford local authority. The local authority has refused to give Irish Water the data it has asked for because it believes the transfer may not comply with data protection rules. Irish Water has asked for the names and addresses of all the tenants in local authority property and the local authority has refused to provide that information because the Data Protection Commissioner could not confirm that the handing over of this information is within the regulations.

Another major problem in Wexford is that some 120 estates have applied to be taken over, but Irish Water is blocking this deliberately because this does not suit it. Irish Water is a disaster and the sooner it is scrapped, the more money the State will save.

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