Regina Doherty (Meath East, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

As a nation, we have been held to ransom over the last six or seven weeks. We have been discussing an issue that seems to have been the subject of discussion for the last three years. I suggest this is a testament to the real need to solve this problem by tackling it head-on. I welcome some of the political choices that Fianna Fáil has put to Fine Gael in the last couple of days because it has made everybody focus their minds. I will set out what I believe in this context. It has not changed in the last three years. I believe we need a single utility to manage the development and roll-out of and investment in this infrastructure, thereby providing this country with clean, good-quality drinking water from taps in kitchens and bathrooms and other locations in our homes. I believe the management of the taxpayers' money that is going into this utility system needs to ensure the best value possible is attained from this country's finite resources. I believe the management structure needs to be scrutinised by a body to ensure we get good value for money.

I also believe we need to bring Irish people along with us on this journey. The overarching idea when water charges were introduced in the first instance was that this measure would make people think about the value of the water that comes out of our taps, appreciate that it is a scarce resource and accept that it costs money to get water of the best possible quality and form to come out of out taps. Maybe the way we did it was ham-fisted. I think we are the first people to put up our hands and say it was not done perfectly. We made mistakes and lots of them. We are now at a crossroads where we can take stock of the good and bad decisions we have made and get it right. We want a quality water system for our people. I believe a single utility is the way to go. I want our people to recognise the value of water. One of the biggest flaws in the approach that was adopted in recent years was the failure to conduct a conservation education campaign. We should have started with our children, our teenagers and our adults whose water-usage habits of a lifetime need to be changed. We should have educated people on why it is a good idea to conserve water. When we introduced the conservation grant, we should have taken the opportunity to reduce from 23% the rate of VAT that is charged on items like water butts that would allow us to conserve water. We should have had a look at the building regulations for new-builds to make sure they encourage people to be more conservative and conscious of the value of the finite resource that is water.

Many people are talking about winners and losers, and about who conceded or who won. I suggest that nobody won and nobody lost. We have a window here now to reflect on what we all want for the people of this country, which is how best to provide high-quality water infrastructure from the investment that is made by taxpayers. I suggest that the whole argument about whether people should pay for water out of their left pocket or their right pocket is bizarre.

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