Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil supports the broad principles behind the Bill. We do not believe it goes far enough and we call for Irish Water to be abolished as we have done on many occasions since this whole sorry debacle began. We commend and compliment Deputy Mattie McGrath on introducing the Bill. Unfortunately, the time allocated to me and others is insufficient to go through the chronological order of events since the debacle began and to highlight the total inefficiencies and the administrative mess that is Irish Water.

As the previous speaker mentioned, in recent weeks and months we have seen the arrival of incomplete and inaccurate bills. The refusal to reveal how many have paid underlines the Government's haphazard policy making on water charges and the administrative mess that is Irish Water. It is clear that the establishment of the Irish Water super-quango has been a complete debacle and it has lost the support and confidence of the public. The Government will struggle to raise funds from the new charges and will not invest an extra cent than was had been invested on an annual basis by previous Administrations.

We do not know the net income relating to that revenue because we have not been given a breakdown of the detail of the administration associated with the €100 grant, as it is called, for turning on the tap. All the while, €540 million has been wasted on water meters that will not be used. In addition, we have had €172 million wasted on setting up Irish Water, particularly the €85 million on consultants. The accountancy trick of taking Irish Water off the national balance sheet has backfired badly. It is time to suspend water charges and abolish Irish Water. It is never too late to do the right thing.

The Bill before the House today contains three key points. In the time allocated to me, I want to deal in particular with the first one. Since it was set up, one item has been rectified, which is the inclusion of Irish Water under the remit of freedom of information legislation. We acknowledge that, although the Government made that change at great pain and was dragged kicking and screaming into doing so. The initial configuration of Irish Water did not allow for it and it seems to provide still a mechanism by which information does not flow freely from this body.

See this speech in context