Mary Butler (Waterford, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Acting Chairman, I am sure he will advise me at the time.

The Water Services Bill is very far from being the single most important issue facing the State when we consider the housing and homelessness crisis, problems in health services and the result of the vote in the UK to exit the EU with the trade repercussions this will have here at home. It is important, nevertheless, and the handling of it in recent years represents a dramatic public policy fiasco.

It is also one of the few areas where there was a substantial policy debate during the last general election with the decisive result in favour of ending current policy. The people, some more boisterous than others, engaged with politicians but the message was loud and clear: Irish Water was a fiasco. People were told their taps would be turned down to a trickle by the then Minister, Phil Hogan, but the scare mongering did not work. Every single claim made by Irish Water has failed.

The EUROSTAT test failed as Irish Water could not and did not raise major funding for investment. It created a national organisation dedicated to billing rather than service provision. The previous Government’s policy was to allow Irish Water massive commercial freedom even though it would be funded primarily by direct state subvention and would take many years to bring services to the level they themselves define as acceptable.

Had Irish Water been a State agency the uncontrolled expansion of management, the bonus culture, the waste, the secrecy, the massive and rising payments for lobbying and many other practices would not have been possible. Equally, the disdain for democratic accountability would never have been allowed.

We needed to end this failed regime and move on from this issue once and for all. Water charges have failed miserably. In 2015 only 53% of bills were paid with annual revenue of €144 million on this basis. Some €100 million was spent on the water grant. Where else in the world could one leave a tap on all night and be rewarded with a €100 conservation grant? It did not add up and I often wonder how many people claimed the grant who did not pay any charges at all. The charge hit those least able to pay and was deeply regressive. Abolishing the last unfair water charging regime was a key Fianna Fáil policy. We engaged, we debated and we gave value for our vote. We represented the voters in making sure that water charges would be resigned to the scrap heap.

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