Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

A bumper sticker which reads "my motor tax pays my water charges" has become popular in the anti-water charges movement and it is about to become even more popular as a result of this provision. According to the website of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the local government fund is:

a special central fund which was established in 1999 under the Local Government Act, 1998. It is financed by the full proceeds of motor tax and an Exchequer contribution. The Fund provides local authorities with the finance for general discretionary funding of their day-to-day activities and for non-national roads, and funding for certain local government initiatives.

Perhaps the website is somewhat out of date because the main purpose of the fund is to pay for Irish Water.

Can the Minister of State clarify how many different sources of funding Irish Water now has? It is getting the property tax instead of libraries, playgrounds and parks, and is also getting motor tax. In addition, it is getting a Department of Social Protection payment via the so-called conservation grant, which it has stolen from lone parents and handed over to those whom the Minister, Deputy Kelly, refers to as the "compliant". It is getting commercial water charges from businesses. It is also trying to get water charges from domestic customers, albeit not very successfully.

Is Irish Water going to suck in the entire revenue of this State in every possible way that money can be obtained? Will it all eventually end up going into Irish Water? Will this be the super-quango of super-quangos?

Why is this extra money needed? Is it a sign that perhaps people are not paying their water charges? That would be indicated by the fact that after six different attempts to get the figures for water charges, we still do not have them. The Taoiseach resorted to telling me to toddle along, while Irish Water said it would not be helpful to give the figures. Under a freedom of information request, it said that it was commercially sensitive information, even though the company is a monopoly. After an appeal, it said the same thing.

During Leaders' Questions, the Minister for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation, Deputy Bruton, refused to answer the question. He gave us an advertisement for Irish Water that we could hear many times on the radio any day of the week. Then a question to the Minister, Deputy Kelly, was ruled out of order. Is this a reflection of the failure of the Government's strategy to scare people into paying the water charges? That is what all this is really about. The reality is that the Government is failing on it.

Surely EUROSTAT has some interest in the fact that this money is coming from the Government's central funds, potentially to Irish Water and provision is made for that through this amendment. Does EUROSTAT have nothing to say about that? Could the Minister of State inform us how EUROSTAT will do the test?

At the Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform recently, there was an incredible statement by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council. Its representatives said they had heard from the Department of Finance that the EUROSTAT test would be done only on the amount of money that has come from the bills. Therefore, it will examine the money that has come from the bills, and ask whether more than 50% of that comes from people who are paying them. Clearly, the answer will always be 100%, meaning that they have managed to dupe the test itself so that they can always win. That is relevant here, otherwise why is money being transferred?

What is the reason that lies behind it? It is also the reason for the amendments tabled by the anti-austerity alliance which provides that first, there should not be more than one payment from the fund. How many payments does the Government intend to make from the fund to Irish Water? Second, such a payment should be subject to approval by both Houses of the Oireachtas. It should not be solely up to the Minister to hand over the money. Most importantly, the reference to €540 million should be deleted and replaced with €1. The whole amendment should go but we are arguing that a maximum allowable transfer should be €1 even if the legislation gets through.

We need to have an in-depth debate on this amendment and cannot allow it to go by without sufficient discussion. The Minister should come in and respond at length to the various questions that have been raised. We should continue the debate through the course of the evening, if necessary, in order to get to the bottom of exactly why this provision is being inserted and why this money is potentially being transferred.

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