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

That is the bottom line. Less is being spent on water infrastructure because more is being spent on administration that is rotten to the core and cannot do its job efficiently or properly.

There may be pollutant forces in the State, namely, septic tank systems that are unable to do the job for which they were designed. When people ask their local authorities whether they can avail of the grant system that the Government introduced to rectify this problem, they are told "No" because they need to get six numbers in the lotto just to be tested by the authority. This is the sham that is Irish Water and that the Government has been perpetrating since day one. The Government cannot admit that the situation has reached this stage and become a debacle because there was no adequate preparation. The Minister who had responsibility was given a commitment by the Taoiseach that he would go to Brussels if he got this set up in time. The Minister did it as quickly as humanly possible and left the holy mess that was Irish Water behind. The Government is trying to clean it up but will not admit its mistakes or that it must stop and start again. As someone stated recently, although something was a white elephant last week, there is no need for it to be a white elephant next week.

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