Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I mis-stated the figure. I said €1.7 billion but that was the total spend. From 2014 to 2024, about €1.1 billion will be required to ensure the compliance for the 38 agglomerations. That is the rough spend. Of the €1.7 billion, Irish Water plans to spend from 2017 to 2021, approximately €623 million is planned for investment in the cited areas. The planned investment builds on an investment of €179 million for the period 2014 to 2016 to develop urban areas. A projected requirement of €286 million for the period beyond 2021 is required. It will bring us to a total spend of €1.1 billion. The €1.1 billion is an increase of €100 million on the previous estimate of what it would cost to fix these.

The Deputy said the current Government and the last Government cut the funding in this area. I do not need to give the Deputy a lecture on economics. The money was not there to spend. That is why we set up the process of Irish Water to be able to put us in a position to spend greater amounts of capital on investment in water and sewage facilities. Trust me, if the money had been at our disposal in our first five years of Government, as in many other areas, we would have been happy to spend it. The money was not there and there is no point in trying to say a previous Government left money in the kitty because it had not. The kitties were bare when we got there.

See this speech in context