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

Like previous speakers, I welcome the opportunity to respond to the debate on the capital development programme announced last week. It is a short window in which to speak, but in the main I hope to address the issues for which I have responsibility as Opposition spokesperson on the environment and, specifically, Irish Water and the housing elements.

We welcome a development plan such as this, which seeks to prioritise capital investment in our infrastructure for the next five years. One must acknowledge the fact that we are able to do so again and that the Government has completed the necessary one third of the overall adjustment required to stabilise our finances. In parallel to that, a strong dollar and sterling, along with the stabilisation of our wage structure and costs, have assisted our exports and would have helped job creation. Nevertheless, people say on a regular basis that they do not feel or see the recovery and that it appears to be centred in Dublin and the east coast. That is very obvious to many of us, and there should have been a concerted effort in this plan to address that imbalance. I am not sure that has happened.

A point was made relating to education. It is amazing that when an election is being spoken about, this Government talks about the great restraint it has shown and the lessons it has learned from the past, yet we see a headline with a quote attributed to the Minister for Finance promising iPads for all school children throughout the country. That is in a time when pupil-teacher ratios need to be adjusted and pressure is being exerted on special needs assistants, capitation grants and small rural schools with two, three or four teachers. There are many issues that must be addressed in education before we go down the road of keeping children's heads in screens all day long. There is much more to education than that, although it is necessary to have broadband and communications support available for education and homes. As previous speakers have indicated, it is an aspect of life that is similar to many other services, and it is only right and proper that there should be a greater effort to make broadband available throughout the country and in rural areas in particular. I hope that pushing this out to 2020 will not be a cop-out and there can be more of a targeted effort to address that imbalance.

I have questions relating to my area of responsibility, as I mentioned. Irish Water is mentioned within the capital development plan, with €3.8 billion to €4 billion spent in the area over the next seven years, inclusive of this year. Today, Irish Water issued a plan for the next seven years to 2021, inclusive of this year, in which it indicates that €5.5 billion will be spent. As is usual with every announcement emanating from Irish Water, or from the Government on behalf of or relating to Irish Water, I am puzzled but not surprised. The EUROSTAT tests demonstrated that the model created by the Government, along with the methods behind it, have not stacked up. As much as the Government wanted this off-balance-sheet, it remains firmly on the balance sheet. The costs associated with Irish Water remain firmly in the hands of the taxpayer.

There is a hole in the figures, with up to €1.7 billion unaccounted for. This year, for example, €75 million is to be paid in water grants, and there will be €20 million in administration costs and another €40 million for metering. There will be a loss this year, but Irish Water indicated today that it will have €2 billion in residential charge income over the next six years. It is just not possible. The company's figures are based on an 80% compliance rate, but even with that rate it is not possible. Irish Water intends to borrow based on the income stream it has, meaning it will pay far in excess of what the Government and the National Treasury Management Agency are borrowing. The only way to close the gap is to increase residential water charges. It is high time somebody came clean on this sorry mess or eventually realised that the company is going nowhere, so the exercise needs to be brought to a halt and started again. Irish Water will continue to throw good money after bad at the expense of the taxpayer.

Despite what we hear in today's spin, less is being spent on the maintenance and servicing of our network this year than was spent in the years of the previous Government. Irish Water would have us believe that it will spend €660 million per year over the next six years, based on figures that do not stack up and without acknowledging administration and salary costs and commitments in various contracts. The company will continue to spend less than the amount spent by the previous Administration under a different regime. This is against a backdrop of an assumption that 1,200 workers will be taken out of Irish Water. Those workers will be taken from the pool of people who were doing the work even before Irish Water came into being. The consultants and those in the higher tiers of management will remain, along with associated bonuses. The company made a so-called commitment to former local authority staff with the service level agreement to 2025, but they are now to be discarded. It is time somebody came clean about this, and perhaps this debate offers an opportunity for the Government to tell us about the gap in the figures and how Irish Water intends to fill it.

From my perspective, the Government intends to fill it from people's pockets, whether in the form of general taxation, extra taxation, increased water charges or increased cost to the taxpayer because of the high interest rates they are paying on their borrowings.

The other point I want to make about housing is that we have had three separate announcements of the housing construction programme: last November, last March and again last week, down in Heuston Station. They have not built three houses in my county, but they have had three launches of this massive development programme. Then they tagged on another €400 million and put an extra year on it. That is because the commitments they made last November for this year have not been met and the money has not been spent, so it is easy to throw it on the back of this plan.

The Government has not delivered on any commitment in respect of the emergency in the housing sector. There has been talk of emergency legislation to fast-track planning in respect of any proposals that are brought forward to meet the current emergency. Another week has gone by with no legislation. The Whips have been meeting and there is no talk of any legislation next week. One begins to wonder whether the Government is going to rush to the country because it cannot meet some of the commitments it has made in recent weeks and is afraid of being exposed on that.

Another issue, as I said in the course of debate on this issue in recent weeks, is vacant units and the myth that the Minister and the Taoiseach created by saying money is not an issue in respect of the funding required to put them back in use. That has been contradicted fervently by officials I have spoken to in local authorities. I will use this opportunity to place that contradiction on the record and will ask some member of Government to respond accordingly.

The Government has also rubbished figures that have emanated from local authorities in respect of the actual numbers on the waiting list and the number of vacant units throughout the country. To continually ballyrag those people is not addressing the issue at hand, which is what people want. They want to hear the issues at hand acknowledged, appreciated and addressed in real and meaningful ways. That is the immediacy of the problem we find there and into the short and long term, as provided for in this capital spending plan.

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