Jim Daly (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----and changing their tune accordingly as the politics moves the other way. Belatedly they are coming to that party.

I come from a constituency where 20% to 30% of the people may not be provided with water, are paying for their own water and have to sink wells, pay maintenance and electricity costs, etc. I hope that point is well understood at this stage. However, the provision of water across Ireland by 34 separate local authorities costs €1.3 billion. Under Irish Water, as a single utility, the provision of the same water to the State costs €800 million per annum. I am not a mathematical genius, but that is a saving of €500 million per annum with the establishment of a single utility to provide water to the nation, as per electricity or any other utility in this country. There is a lot of toil, sweat and tears to be done by working people to enable them contribute that saving to the Exchequer. Just because we want to abandon principle, leave principled politics at the door and chase popular politics in a race to the bottom we are willing to forgo this saving as a starting point. That is deeply regrettable for anybody who continues to agitate for the abolition of Irish Water.

Another myth is that people's road tax is going into Irish Water. Again, the media has been very difficult in this regard, and I have tried for my part several times to make these points about Irish Water to the media but they had no interest in them. The reality is that the function of water was removed from the local authorities and so was a certain part of its funding stream. Road tax always went into the provision of water. Where do we think the money for the €1.3 billion cost of water was coming from? It always came from road tax-----

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