Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to respond to the commentary from colleagues on all sides of the House. I thank Members for their contributions to the debate. This is a very short Bill and there has been little discussion on the technicalities of the legislation. I hope we will have an opportunity to do this on Committee Stage in the coming days when we will go through the Bill line by line to make sure we get it right.

Essentially, the thinking behind the legislation is clear. It is about trying to create a window of opportunity to have a less politicised discussion on how we pay for domestic water services in terms of the supply of clean, safe water, which clearly is not the case in parts of the country. That is evidence, if we needed it, that we need to change the system we use to deliver water. The previous system was operated through the local authorities which were under-funded in many cases. Although there were many good engineers within the local authorities, the reality is we had a very disjointed system, with individual local authorities trying to do their own thing. When we look at the statistics, the results are shocking; some 49% of water leaks through pipes before it reaches its supposed destination, thousands of people are subject to boil water notices for long periods and raw sewage is going into harbours, rivers and lakes.

The House does not need me to make the arguments on the need for an improved water treatment and delivery system for households across Ireland. I hope the discussion in the next nine months will be about how we do this, who pays for it and how it is to be paid for. The one constant in this debate is that everybody accepts that we need to pay for water and that this is not a free resource in terms of its treatment and management. What the debate is about is whether we should pay for it through general taxation, whether there should be a household contribution element for the amount of water used, whether the volumes used should be paid for in full by households or whether some other metric should be used.

I appeal to other parties during this process to contribute to that debate. Within the next couple of days - certainly this week - we will have the announcement of an expert commission. I have tried to ensure a real balance on the commission in terms of legal and technical expertise and knowledge, including an input from group water schemes. This interaction with the commission will certainly be facilitated in the next five months in order that we can come to a set of recommendations on which it will be up to us to decide as the democratically elected representatives of the people.

For some, this will not be an easy process because many people have already committed politically to an outcome, which in some ways is not helpful to the process. Fine Gael has a political policy position on how water should be paid for, as do Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin. No party has a majority in this House anymore; therefore, we are trying to put in place a structure to put some questions and options on the table which make sense, first and foremost, for households in the provision of water, in the belief that the delivery system will work for them and that it will be fair. If there are two neighbours who use dramatically different volumes of water, for whatever reason, is it fair that they effectively pay the same amount for that resource through general taxation? It is not and neither is it fair to ask somebody who cannot afford it to pay for water. There is now such a structure in place.

I thank Sinn Féin for supporting this legislation, even though its position on it is very different from mine. I hope it is an indication that it will buy into the process and try to work with and contribute to it. In nine months time we will have an all-party Oireachtas committee which will bring forward recommendations to the House, regardless of how uncomfortable they may be for some of us. There is a risk for everybody, but probably more so for the Government parties than for anybody else. We will, however, take on board the committee's recommendations and have an honest and informed discussion without the constant political manoeuvring whereby all political parties and none try to outmanoeuvre each other to be more popular on this issue. Real anger and resentment have been encouraged through the water debates that have taken place on the streets and in this House. My job as Minister is to deal with the issue.

As people get to know me, I hope they will get to know that I am someone who wants to listen to other perspectives. I might not agree with them all of the time, but there should be consensus in the House on water as a resource and how we deliver and should pay for it in order that as Governments change there will not be radical changes of policy on the delivery of something as fundamental as water. If we did that in the case of electricity, the country would not be able to function. If we did it in the case of gas, we would have huge difficulties and interruptions in supply and funding models. It is a little like what the Minister, Deputy Simon Harris, is trying to do in the health service because it is a fundamental service for the public. There is no more fundamental provision of a resource into people's homes than the provision of water and, as Minister, I will try to facilitate that process.

I will be in Brussels next week to meet the European Commissioner for the Environment who I know quite well because he is also the marine Commissioner and I was formerly the Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine. I know him well from negotiations on fisheries and he is a very decent and straight individual. I have already spoken to him at length on the telephone. I want to go to Brussels in person to explain what we are trying to do. For an outsider, the resentment, marches, protests and anger seem like a very strange process in the politics of water provision, especially to people in other countries who have been paying domestic water charges for a generation, or certainly for decades. I am not pretending for one minute that it is contrived. The anger many people feel towards water charges is genuine and to try to get acceptance of a new financing model will not be easy in that context. There have been a lot of mistakes made which have led to that anger, but there is also politics being played which has encouraged it. When I talk about trying to take the politics out of water provision, I am not talking about trying to create some cosy consensus with which everybody will be comfortable but rather about having an informed debate to make a decision that can last through various changes of Government, which will undoubtedly happen in the next number of decades. We should have a consistent and sustainable approach to water provision which is consistent with our obligations and commitments, both nationally and internationally. It is something we want to embrace rather than have forced on us by a water framework directive.

The issue of public ownership has been raised repeatedly. There is no privatisation agenda in the Government on water services. If one looks at the legislation that safeguards this, for any future Government to privatise Irish Water, it would have to obtain permission to do so through a plebiscite. It would require a referendum for it to happen. That is the length to which the last Government went to to reassure people that there was no privatisation agenda. The previous model of water delivery whereby local authorities were forced to outsource the building and management of water treatment facilities to private companies was leading to privatisation by stealth. Irish Water is taking back ownership of many of wastewater treatment facilities; it is a reversal of what was happening previously in the context of privatisation. I am open to suggestions others may have to provide further reassurances in maintaining Irish Water as a publicly owned utility and to reassure people that there is no privatisation agenda. Let us look at what we can do in that regard. I have listened to what people have been saying, but it is not as simple as holdindg a referendum on water infrastructure given the complexities around private ownership of much of the water infrastructure in rural Ireland through group water schemes. People are perfectly happy with the current infrastructure which is working quite well and which they are financing. For group water schemes, we are moving to ensure the financial models and supports in place before the introduction of the water conservation grant will be returned to. We have spoken to the National Federation of Group Water Schemes about this and it seems to be very happy with what we are proposing to do. We are also proposing to increase the grant aid available for private wells and their maintenance. There is nothing to fear for group water schemes or those who have been paying for their water for many years.

There are contracts in place to finish phase 1 of the water metering programme and we will see it through. There is a second phase which is more complex in providing meters in apartment complexes and other housing units that are not as easy to access. Decisions will be made in the future in that regard; we are not making any decision on it right now.

I am not going to start holding a stick over people because of their legal views in interpreting the Water Framework Directive. All I am saying is the European Commission's view on it does not come as a surprise to Fine Gael and it should not come as a surprise to anybody else either. Let us wait and see how it assesses the issue. There will be legal expertise in the commission which will look at the issues and listen to the arguments and what people have to say. It will make an independent assessment and recommendations in the five months it will be working on the issue. Let us wait and see what it will state. I am happy to let it do this, but some people seem to be hugely surprised by and contest what the European Commission has been stating on the issue. It should not come as a surprise at all.

This process is about trying to fix some of the failings to which people have been referring repeatedly. I appeal to them to work with us on the issue.

Who knows, in the not too distant future, Fianna Fáil or Sinn Féin may be in government and it will be their responsibility to try to ensure we deliver an improved water provision each year and make sure fewer people will be subject to boil water notices and fewer families will be affected by public health issues that are impacted on by pollution and poor water quality.

When we look at what Irish Water is planning to do in dealing with leaks between now and 2021, its targets are clear. It aims to move from a figure of 49% to 38%. This can only be done over a phased period. All of the leaks cannot be plugged overnight. It is hugely expensive, but Irish Water is committed to continuing that process. Not only that, we will essentially have an observation body which is also being set up as part of the nine-month process and which will report quarterly to the Oireachtas to ensure the targets which are being set in the business plan for Irish Water and on which the regulator is insisting are being met. We will have an independent monitoring body to report to the committee and the Oireachtas to make sure that will be the case. That is part of what we are trying to do in creating an acceptance and an understanding of the challenges Irish Water faces and how it is responding to them on behalf of the State which will continue to own it into the future.

I look forward to hearing what Members will have to say on Committee Stage. I ask Members to try to facilitate the movement of this legislation as quickly as possible. Let us not forget that we are effectively introducing a freeze on water charges from 1 July, in a few days time. By the time the legislation is finalised and enacted, it will effectively be retrospective for a number of days or a week or two. That is fine and there is nothing extraordinary about it. However, the sooner we get it through, the sooner we will provide certainty. It will allow the commission to get on with its work and allow the process to begin to, I hope, resolve some of the issues that have been the source of a lot of frustration for Members opposite. It will allow us to move on from this issue, as I think many of us would like to do, and focus on the many other challenges that the Government and the House have to face.

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