Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to have an opportunity to speak to the Water Services (Amendment) Bill 2016. Like my Fianna Fáil colleagues, I support the Bill. I will not discuss the various legal clarifications that are outstanding at this time. As a result of the Bill which reflects the first part of Fianna Fáil's agreement to facilitate a minority Government, water charges will be suspended immediately. I thank the Minister for outlining the timeframe the other day. The suspension period will begin on 1 July, when the work of the commission will kick in. We should receive a report on how it is going in December. The special Oireachtas committee will report back in March and the Dáil will subsequently vote on its recommendations. I understand that if the committee has not fully completed its work, the Minister can determine that the timeframe available to it needs to be expanded.

My colleague, Deputy Dara Calleary, has spoken really well about rural schemes and I do not need to rehash what has been said. One of the reasons we as a party did not support water charges in the very beginning was that we did not believe people should pay for water that was not drinkable. Like many other Deputies, I have experience of this in my home area of east Galway. I live in Portumna where the water is chlorinated on a regular basis because its quality is not great. Eight miles out the road in Woodford there are lead pipes with asbestos connections which are regularly broken. The people of Woodford have waited 15 years for these pipes and asbestos connections to be improved. The footpaths have not been repaired during that time. It was only last year, following the establishment of Irish Water, that they realised they would never have the road repaired because they had gone from No. 11 to No. 33 on the waiting list. I refer to Main Street in Woodford. Although funding was subsequently sought and - fair play to Galway County Council and the Department - the road was repaired, I suggest that in itself was a signal that the pipes were not going to be repaired.

There are other issues with Irish Water in Loughrea, 20 km away. When rain falls, the back gardens of houses in the Coscorrig estate are completely flooded. I suggest this is happening continuously because no one in Irish Water is answerable. We are not feeling its funding coming to us. We could not feel the value of the Irish Water infrastructure because we believed it was a quango. In fact, it was more about public relations and the propaganda of selling its image than it was about giving benefits to people on the ground. The people of Loughrea are still subject to a boil water notice. We cannot get answers when we ask when they will come off it. This issue is having an impact not only on the people of Loughrea but also on the people of Craughwell, further into the county, who are included in the same water scheme. I am trying to build a picture to show the Minister how Irish Water has failed the people of east Galway. I am not just talking about the rural schemes in the villages; I am also talking about towns. Portumna, Woodford, Loughrea and Craughwell have all been affected. People were paying their water charges all the while, even though they felt really reluctant to do so because they were receiving such a poor service. The water was not drinkable and subject to a boil water notice. The authorities in Portumna cannot apply for a blue flag because there is no reason to believe the water supply in the locality will be of sufficient quality two years in a row.

The Minister might say the problems I have mentioned are not all of Irish Water's doing, but I suggest they can be attributed to its failure to put in place an overarching umbrella to support us. When I sat on Galway County Council, we struggled to get clear-cut answers from representatives of Irish Water. When they came before us, they were unable to give us definite answers. They could not give a timeframe for delivery, for example. Everything needs to be subject to time management. People need to receive feedback, but we were not getting the relevant feedback. Both parties have agreed to this legislation which will send this issue out to a commission in order that people can talk about it. We need to find a deliverable solution that will ensure the infrastructure - the pipes and personnel, etc. - will be in place before people on the ground are ever asked to pay water charges again. There is a need for a a timeframe for anything that needs to be delivered. People do not want to pay for water that they cannot drink. They should not have to go down the road to SuperValu or Aldi to buy water, while paying water charges at the same time. I do not want to have to represent people in such circumstances. I do not believe we should have to pay for water if we cannot drink it. I do not have to say anything more than that. I welcome the Bill and look forward to what will come out of the report.

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