Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

It is amazing to see Deputy McGuinness backing him up but I know he does so in jest. Returning to my figures, that is an astonishing gap of almost €50 million which has still not been explained by any Minister. It has been taken out of the supports for the rural water schemes, the private well owners and private sewerage schemes. In Tipperary alone during the same period of 2011 to 2016, there was a reduction in payments under the rural water programme from €1.953 million in 2011 to €718,558 in 2016. It was halved, and now they give lip service saying they are setting up a working group. These are the people who do the work. They sank the pipes. They sank the wells. They repaired the pipes. They monitored and they metered. If there is leaks, they fix them. There is no messing going on there. Now we are setting up a working group. The Government insults them. It says we are going to look at the situation. It should give them back the money and give them some bit of respect for what they did and the pioneering way they worked. It should respect the way they look after the water schemes. They do not go ringing up the council or the local politician if they have a burst pipe. They get the JCB hire themselves, pay for it themselves, go down in the drains and fix the pipes, and they are well able to do it. We should salute them. That is a shocking indictment and a con-job in respect of this Bill.

I have a reply to a recent parliamentary question. There has been a cut of €1.2 million to Tipperary alone for those schemes and services. While the €415,000 that will be given to Tipperary County Council - the whole county, not just south Tipperary - is welcome, it remains a pittance in comparison with what was taken. We can also see from the data provided that between 2015 and 2016, the amount paid to private well operators in Tipperary was down from €92,905 to €71,407. That was another €20,000 knocked off. Sure, they do not matter. We can prune them. They do not care. They will not go protesting. They will not go up to Dublin and lock Joan Burton in anything.

They are good, decent, upright and civic-minded citizens who provide the water for themselves and do not mind providing it. They are not anarchists who do not allow free speech and prevent everyone else from doing things any way other than their own way. There is nothing worse than liberals who cannot get their way. They are very demanding, badgering, insulting to other people and bullying. There is nothing worse than them. We hear them here every day of the week. There is nothing worse than it.

Stark figures that have been provided by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government prove that over the last five years, more and more responsibility was put on the operators of the group water schemes, who got less and less support from the Department. I do not know how the Minister of State is going to wish that away. He cannot do so. The people out there are not fools. They are waiting in the long grass. They are fixing the pipes in the trenches and the drains. They are not going to be kicked around or booted around like some African or Indian cult, or wild Indians that can just be dismissed. They all vote too. They are right to vote. They are angry. They are right to be cross.

This wasteful Government established Irish Water, put the fat cats in place and wasted money on consultants. It spent €590 million putting in meters. What is the problem now? In my constituency - I cannot speak for anywhere else - the meters that are leaking outside many houses are damaging properties and entrances. We cannot fix them. The council is not allowed to fix them. When we contacted Irish Water, it told us that the company which installed the meters has gone bust. That is some public service. That is some answer to give people, including me and many other politicians. There is no one to fix the meters because the company has gone bust. The council is not allowed to fix them. It is a real "dog in the manger" job. The water is flowing down the road. Where is the wastage? Where is the monitoring of waste? Where is the fairness in that?

The driveways of certain households have been completely destroyed by traffic because the council has lay-bys but the water leaks cannot be fixed. We have been told that the company that installed the meters has gone into liquidation. The county council's plumbers, caretakers and plumbers' helpers want to fix the leaks. They are meeting people every day of the week. They cannot bear driving past water leaks. Their job is to make sure we have a supply. They are denied the right to fix the leaks to which I refer. It would not happen in a kindergarten of children of two or three years of age. The departmental officials, the Government and the board of Irish Water are standing over that.

We have no investment now. We are short €179 million as a result of the farcical repayments to almost 1 million people who paid their water charges. It is a farce that this money is going to be given back. We are going to give it back to them because of an agreement between Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael. People do not want it back. They paid it. I would not say they were happy to pay it. Upright and civic-minded citizens who always pay their way wanted to pay, but now they are getting their money back. I am aware that when we were administering a repayment scheme here before, the then Department of Social Welfare had to hire an extra 100 staff. It wanted an extra €20 million to administer the scheme. This money will not be repaid by October or November. People will be waiting for Santa Claus for a long time. If he is here by April Fools' Day, he will be welcome, but that will not happen.

It has been suggested that this will cost €179 million, but I know it will be a lot more. There is supposed to be €400 million or €500 million in fiscal space, to use a dreaded term, but this will be taken out of it. People are waiting for orthodontic treatment and for all kinds of operations, including cataract operations. There are waiting lists for this, that and the other. Schoolchildren cannot get into the National Educational Psychological Service programme. We cannot get home help services because of cutbacks. This kind of farce is going on in parallel. This place up here has become a bit of a zoo. I say that in light of the kind of disdain with which the public is being treated. A working group has been set up to ensure there is fair play for rural people. The rural people have awoken. They are awake and they know what is going on. They are not being fooled any more.

I have referred to the €496 million that was spent on the metering programme. It was a waste. I said it at the time. I brought a meter into this Chamber and displayed it to the former Minister, Deputy Hogan, or "Big Phil" as I used to call him. We heard that all the older meters which had been installed in certain places had to be taken out. In some places, they had only been in for six months. We were told they were defunct. When we asked what was defunct about them, it was explained to us that an electrical device was necessary to facilitate drive-by registers. That could have been fitted onto the existing meters using a small ready-made application. The old meters have been taken up and thrown into the scrap truck. In my area, they have been brought to the scrapyard in Clonmel. All the steel meter covers that were put down to stop the lorries that go up on the footpaths from breaking them were also sold to the scrapyards. What went on was a scandal. All the meters that have been in place for three or four years have batteries with a maximum life of six, seven, eight, nine or ten years. Another big expense will be put on top of the people when they are asked to pay for replacement batteries.

People on group schemes mind their wells and treat them with respect. They cover them at times of frost. They look after the wells and ensure they are repaired when they fail. When necessary, they get in plumbers to replace pumps, sometimes at a cost of €3,000. Those people are getting a working group, which is an insulting term, to look at their problems, which could take six or eight years. A similar point can be made about the pipe to Dublin. Approximately 45% of the water in Dublin is going to waste. The Government will not fix the leaks. It wants to sabotage water from Tipperary. It wants to take over our water like Cromwell tried to take over Clonmel. We resisted him, but we could not resist Big Phil when he diminished our local democracy. He destroyed it completely.

The people are waiting. This saga is not finished. The pipe to Dublin is another farce. The plan is to pump the water up so that it can leak around the streets of Dublin city. Have we ever heard anything to beat it? The pipeline will be bigger than I am so that people will be able to stand into it and walk down it. Compulsory purchase orders are to be used as a bully tactic to bring this pipeline through people's land to Dublin. I do not deny the people of Dublin water, but they should fix and mind what they have. I am not saying the residents should do this, but I am saying they should take some responsibility. There should be a meter on every house so that people can monitor and check their water use. Perhaps it could be somewhere near the ESB meter or under the sink. Water is a valuable resource and should not be wasted.

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