Enda Kenny (Mayo, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

That will not improve without Irish Water being able to invest seriously in improving capacity to supply clean water in huge volumes and to deal with the leakage that, in many cases, has been happening for 100 years. Irish Water has invested over €400 million since 2015, an increase of 37% on the estimated €300 million spent in 2013. Since January 2014, it has built 20 new and upgraded water treatment plants and 49 new and upgraded wastewater treatment plants. If people live in those areas and can see the improvement in the quality of life that has come about as a consequence, they will understand why Irish Water has done such work. The Cork lower harbour project, costing €90 million, is also under way.

As a public servant, Joe O'Toole did a great deal of work over the many years he was involved in public life. He has said he wants to be an impartial chairman and he knows, more than anybody else, there must be public and political confidence in the integrity of the process that has been set out. The people the Deputy mentioned - trade unionists, ordinary citizens and so on - of course have their opportunity, but the issue was to have an expert advisory group to advise in respect of how Irish Water should do its business, the standards that should be set and the trends it should follow in order to provide businesspeople and ordinary citizens with clean water and proper wastewater treatment plants while at the same time provide an opportunity for continued investment for jobs for people so that they can have a life to live and contribute to our society. The Deputy has a very different view from me in terms of Irish Water but in the while it has been in operation, despite the many difficulties in the beginning, it has made very significant improvements through town and country, and its programme of investment in the coming years will continue that kind of development.

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