Thomas Byrne (Meath East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Bríd Smith, who, unfortunately, is not with us, forgets that this legislation resulted not from any pact among conservative parties but from an all-party Dáil committee. It is important legislation in this regard. From the activities in the street, illegal activities in some cases, and to legitimate peaceful protests - I was part of a couple of them in my constituency - this legislation has come to try to solve the problem and bring peace and resolution to the situation that, by and large, most people can accept, agree and live with. I know some people on the left flank of politics will be disappointed if it means less protest, but what we want is a sustainable funding mechanism for water in this country, fairness for people and to give people a bit of a break in terms of what they have to pay. The problem with water charges the last time was that it was the straw that broke the camel's back. It was just one thing after another imposed by the previous Government throughout the period of austerity and people simply could not afford it. This is a way of solving this problem and trying to bring the country together and look after everybody, from the poorest to the richest, with everybody giving their share to society. That is what this legislation is about.

I will concentrate my remarks on the major interaction I would have had with Irish Water, which was during last summer and which related to the water outage at the Staleen water treatment plant in Donore, County Meath. This treatment plant covers a wide area encompassing all of Drogheda, south Louth and all of east Meath as far as Ashbourne and Ratoath and even as far as Kilbride and a lot of rural areas near Navan, including as far up as Skryne. The water outage that occurred at the plant had a devastating effect on this major region of approximately 90,000 people during the summer. People literally could not get a drink of water in some cases.

In other cases, I saw people coming from the River Nanny in Duleek after collecting water. Children were not washed for days, though I suppose we could live with that during the summer holidays, but that is what happened. This week, Irish Water produced a report, which is written by itself for some reason, about what happened. Perhaps it can give the history lesson, but I am not satisfied that this will end here and the report that Irish Water has issued describing the history of what happened during the summer will end with that. Somebody independent needs to examine this because a number of issues which arise from this incident.

The most positive thing to happen during the crisis was that, in a system which is demarcated by Berlin walls between counties where the water system is concerned, where the Louth system does not meet the Meath system, even in adjoining housing estates, avenues were discovered to connect the different systems. It was discovered that Ashbourne could be connected to the Dublin network. There was a possibility of connecting Ardcath and Garretstown and Louth to Meath. It worried me that these discoveries were made almost by accident or by engineers who happened to have corporate memory or knowledge from county councils a few years ago. There did not seem to be anything on file about how to deal with the issues that arose and how these opportunities might arise, or what the map of the network was. This did not seem to be readily available. In the case of connecting Ashbourne to the Dublin supply, it was a case of one engineer remembering and copping onto it. Fair play to him since he saved a number of days' hardship for many people by remembering that but it was very ad hoc, and nothing seemed to be in place globally. Things were found out on a very ad hocbasis.

I would like there to be more focus by Irish Water and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment on the opportunities that can arise. Irish Water would have been sold as an effort to connect the grid for water supply between counties. That is what it was sold as and I do not know what effort has gone into actually achieving that, which is a worry. Another worry, which is mentioned in Irish Water's report, are the circumstances in which it was unable to gain access to the source of the problem with the pipe for almost a day. Irish Water was prevented by the owner of the field from accessing the source of the problem. It is mentioned a number of times in the report as a case of Irish Water not appropriately closing a previous burst pipe in that field. As I understand it, what actually happened is that a particular individual was not paid what he was owed by Irish Water. While there was a massive inconvenience to the rest of the area, Irish Water was prevented from going on-site and it was its own fault, as it has said in the report.

We need a full investigation into how Irish Water handles these issues. Even if Irish Water it says the pipe was not appropriately closed off, while it does not say what the issue was, somebody needs to look at it and the Department needs to haul representatives of Irish Water in to ask what they are doing. It is outrageous. If someone had been able to get into the field on that day, perhaps Irish Water would have been able to fix it. There were a number of failed attempts to fix it, but it was prevented from going into the field for a considerable period. Irish Water says that was its fault. I want the Government to look at this and to bring in Irish Water. The Oireachtas committee should also examine the issue. If that is happening there, it could be happening in many other places. When we met Irish Water on the day, it said it was its fault. It has said it here too. That is not good enough. Where else is this happening and where else could it cause a major problem?

What improvements could be made to the network? A number of issues have been examined over the years, including connecting the Dunshaughlin water supply to Ratoath. Local politicians have called for that for a considerable period. That happened to a small extent during the crisis but if the proper pipework was laid - and I believe the cost was very low - this would have a dramatic effect on insulating particular areas, Ratoath in that case, from problems that might arise and protect them from outages in other parts of the network.

I have nothing but praise for the actions of staff of Irish Water and the local authority that I met on the ground but the report illustrates difficulties that they had. This issue arose towards a weekend. The pipe burst on a Thursday, the issue continued into Friday and the emergency response only started on Saturday. It was the following Saturday before every house was finally reconnected to the network. It was difficult to source the equipment that was needed to deal with the emergency because it happened close to a weekend. That was a major problem that needs to be looked at. If something happens at the weekend, we think it is bad enough that we cannot ring someone to find out what is happening or citizens have to ring an 1890 number to get information from a call centre. The officials on the ground also had tremendous difficulty accessing necessary equipment because it was a weekend. That needs to be examined by the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government and the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment.

It is disgraceful that the loss of income suffered by many small businesses as a result of this crisis and a lack of water has not been dealt with in this report and there needs to be a Government response to it. Cafés, hairdressers and factories had to close because of a lack of water. I was talking to a major employer who had to close because of the situation. In one case, a major employer was able to stay open because tankers of water were provided for the premises, very belatedly in that case, and there were communications difficulties. The manager simply would not have known who to ring in this sort of situation. Who knows who to ring in those cases? It was the holiday period, so many people who would ordinarily be responsible were, through no fault of their own, on holidays and other people stepped into their shoes and did tremendous work. Nothing has been given by Irish Water in the form of a concession that compensation would be provided for loss of earnings. These are small businesses on the whole, and some larger ones, that have paid their commercial water charges for a considerable period, which are hugely out of pocket. They include hairdressers, launderettes, cafés and so on that had to close for that period.

I am glad that Irish Water has issued a report. I cannot dispute it as a history of what happened at the time but it is not complete and it needs to be looked at by the Government and probably an Oireachtas committee, because there are certainly lessons to be learned from this that could be applied to other parts of the country. Fixes could be implemented now that would give us a much more robust water supply and not have it depend on one particular line from one particular water plant. I do not know if the Minister of State is in a position to comment on that when he is summing up, but I would like to see further action on it and for it not to be the final word for the citizens of the region or a water company on such a major crisis, unprecedented in my time in politics.

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