Micheál Martin (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

We sought this debate because we believe it is important for Deputies to be able to outline their approach to the broad issue of water services, and if we want this debate to be useful, it would be constructive if Deputies concentrated on outlining their own policies. This is very far from being the single most important issue facing our country. However, it is important, and the handling of it in recent years represents a dramatic public policy fiasco. It is also one of the few areas where there was a substantial policy debate during the election and a decisive result in favour of ending the current policy.

There has been an enormous amount of ill-informed and highly skewed coverage of this issue in recent weeks. The scale of lobbying and media briefing by a commercial State body using public money has been unprecedented. This has distorted the debate and ensured that manifestly false claims are being made on behalf of existing policy. During the past five years and during the election, Fianna Fáil was clear in setting out its policy and addressing various eventualities. Many have presented distorted and superficial claims about our policies, but distorting and misrepresenting our policies has been a consistent reason that so many failed to anticipate growing public support for our party.

We opposed the establishment of Irish Water and the introduction of the charge. Leaving aside the issue of the arrogant failure of the outgoing Government to justify the model of a national commercial utility or to outline the actual costs involved in the administrative and charging regimes imposed, we had other substantive problems. We accept the need to invest in improving our water services but to say that the existing framework is the only way this work can be funded and delivered is not true. The comparison with the ESB is fatuous. The ESB does not require State subvention. It is a genuinely commercial firm, albeit providing a vital public service. More importantly, the ESB does not demand that users pay it for years before it can guarantee an acceptable service.

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