Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to speak about the budget. It is regrettable that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government is not here but I welcome the fact that my constituency colleague, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, is present. It is obvious that, when one reads the small print, Irish Water features in the budget. The Estimates contain a working capital loan of €58 million next year on top of €96 million in 2015 and another €184 million in 2016 as a capital contribution. This is more taxpayers' money and there will be many more announcements. I know that as time moves on, there will more money moved across so the Government is throwing good money after bad. Could the Minister explain exactly what that money will go towards? Millions, and heading for billions, of euro have been spent on obsolete meters, consultancy fees and establishing call centres - everything bar fixing leaking pipes and providing the service. Of course, the entire Irish Water project is based on fantasy economics. I pointed out four years ago that this was where this was heading. I will outline a few facts based on answers from the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and other Ministers. The Department estimates that the gross contribution from domestic water charges that could be collected with full compliance in 2016 would be €209 million. Out of that, one must take €20 million for collection costs, €6 million to administer the so-called water conservation grant and €130 million for the water conservation grant itself. Take all of that away and one is left with a grand total of €53 million.

That is the sum total of the gain from the hundreds of millions of euro wasted on Irish Water and the hardship and anxiety caused to householders. We know from figures supplied that the cost of running the show from day to day is €900 million and on top of that it will need a capital injection of approximately €600 million to €700 million a year. When that is added up it is close to €1.5 billion. That is a long way from €50 million. There is a huge hole. How is the Government going to fill that hole? To date it has pumped in taxpayers' money into this quasi non-governmental organisation, quango, or corporate monster. The only option for those who are returned after the election will be to do a complete U-turn on the commitment not to increase water charges for the next two years and to hike them up.

On the problem of housing, there are people living in sheds and sleeping in cars and on the streets. I am sure they go into the office of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Flanagan. They certainly come to me. They are in Portlaoise, Mountmellick, Portarlington and Monasterevin. They are all over the place. There are almost 1,800 households on the council waiting list in County Laois and 7,000 families seeking accommodation in Kildare. The €69 million in the Estimates will not go anywhere near meeting that demand. We proposed €325 million extra for a housing package on top of what the Government has announced several times this year. The figure the Government gives will provide for only an extra 450 houses. If that was allocated on a population basis Laois would get approximately seven or eight council houses and Kildare would do somewhat better with 11 or 13 extra houses. The Government is happy to continue subsidising private landlords and it is not delivering. The rental accommodation scheme, RAS, is crumbling in Laois. Landlords are walking away from it by the day and people are winding up homeless and having to be pushed into emergency accommodation. It is crumbling in Kildare too. That is the fact. There is no word of when the housing assistance payment, HAP, is to start in the county. That needs to be addressed. I am very disappointed that the housing issue has not been addressed. It is a huge problem. The Government has not done anything in this budget to get to grips with this problem. It has failed to bring in rent controls despite having four and a half years to do it. If it does not bring in rent controls it will not solve the problem.

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