Martin Kenny (Sligo-Leitrim, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Water is one of those things in life that we cannot survive without. It is like air. If we do not have oxygen, we do not live. If we do not have water, we do not live. When people look to outer space and scientists look for life on planets that we cannot see with the naked eye, they look to see if there is water. It is fundamental to life and existence. From that point of view, it is logical that we should have it in abundance and free of charge. Most people would acknowledge this basic principle as being realistic, normal, acceptable and logical. Yet, we have a situation here in Ireland where, as Deputy Pearse Doherty told me earlier, houses are being flooded in Killybegs due to all the rain that fell this evening. We have that all over the country. There is so much water coming out of the sky on top of us that we are trying to deal with the floods. I appreciate that water has to be treated and pumped and that there is a cost involved, but there is not a huge scarcity of water in this country as there is in other countries. The problem is that water is being made into a commodity. That is the issue most people have.

The rural-urban divide is often involved when we speak about water, particularly in regard to group schemes. Some of the Deputies mentioned how people in rural parts of Ireland on group schemes are in a different place. I remember the first protests about water charges and the establishment of Irish Water. In Carrick-on-Shannon, Manorhamilton and many other places in rural parts of Ireland where I attended those protests, most of those who were there were on group schemes. In a sense, they were already paying for their water. Communities had come together, formed a committee and applied to the local authority to get a fund to put pipes in the ground and bring water to their homes because the State simply refused to do it. They had no other option but to do it that way and the system meant that a charge was placed on each household. In a sense, when we think of what was provided in urban areas, that was unfair, but it was an act of necessity that brought them to that situation. Yet, those same people were out complaining and protesting against Irish Water. Many of them had their banners from various group schemes around the country. They knew that this was a slippery slope and that it would go out of the control of the community and into the control of a corporate entity. That is the problem people have with it.

Many people speak about how group schemes are different and how people in rural areas have meters at their houses. I am on a group scheme and I have a meter outside the door of the house. To the next house, however, it is the most of a kilometre and the next person after that is probably another kilometre away. In rural parts of Ireland, it is an entirely different scenario. Metering is used as a means to measure the water, find the leaks and see where it is all moving around.

Let me give an example. A number of years ago there was a huge problem with pipes leaking in the group scheme that I am on. The pipes were first put in some time in the early 1960s and it was probably not done as professionally as it would be nowadays. The kind of pipework was certainly not as good as it would be nowadays. There was an awful lot of leaks and bursts, particularly on roads where there was soft ground with heavy lorries rolling across them. The pipes were always bursting. A number of years ago, the local group scheme applied for a grant from the council to get the scheme upgraded. One of the conditions of the grant was that sluice valves, meters, various control points, pumps and checks etc. would have to be installed. Everyone in the community on the scheme had to pay towards it.

In a sense, that was a microcosm of the whole country because that is the problem we have in the whole of Ireland. We have a massive scheme, if one likes, to provide water and an awful lot of the water is leaking and the scheme is failing and having huge problems. When we went back to the people in the community and said we would try to solve the problem, take care of the leaks and sort it out, we said the first thing we were going to do was lay new pipes across all of the area. We were going to sort everything out and it was an all-inclusive scheme. What if that committee had to go to the people on the group scheme and say the first thing it would do was install a meter and blame a particular person for the problem? That is how this Government got it so wrong when they invented Irish Water. It blamed the people for the problem. The consumer of the water is not the problem, but the provider. If the provider had to come out and say it would fix all the leaks, lay all the pipes and sort it all out, people would have had a greater understanding of what was going on. However, the Government made the fatal mistake of blaming people for what it was doing. That is the main reason so many people throughout Ireland were so adamant that Irish Water had to be stopped and got rid of.

I remember council meetings when we met people from Irish Water. They were telling us all they were going to do. This is interesting because in County Leitrim more people receive their water through group schemes than any other supply. All of those people were out protesting against it. When the issue came up as to what was going to happen, these group schemes were going to be left out on a limb. They were encouraged by councils and many others to come in under the auspices of the local authorities. Many did and were taken in charge by the local authorities just before Irish Water came on board. The reason was so that there would be some grant aid provided to help them upgrade the schemes.

I know many of those schemes. One of them is in Corraleehan, just outside of Ballinamore in County Leitrim. We get about ten calls a month because people have no water. The reason they have no water is that the pumps providing the water in that scheme are overheating, burning out and tripping due to the number of leaks. People then have to reset the pumps and they keep doing it. The simple solution is to mend the leaks in the pipes but Irish Water will not do that. Its latest proposal is to replace the pumps. It will spend taxpayers' money putting in new pumps to pump water that will leak and those pumps will burn out again. This continuous waste is really getting under people's skin.

I remember the day I was listening to the News at One when the spokesperson from Irish Water said it had already spent €80 million on consultants. That was a pivotal turning point. People wondered what the hell was going on. They could not get water to their homes. At least when they had control of it themselves they were able to sort out the situation. However, now they had this bureaucratic mess. It was another layer of bureaucracy on top of the problem that was already there and it was not solving the problem but adding to it.

The reality for most people is that they want a service provided. It was interesting to listen to the Deputies from the Rural Independent Group speaking about rural parts of Ireland being neglected and left behind.

All of that is certainly true. Key to solving the problems of rural Ireland is ensuring we get infrastructure into it. We speak of broadband, roads and all these elements, but one part of the infrastructure is water supply. For example, if a large company decided to locate in one of the rural counties in the country, a number of years ago it would have approached a local authority. It is interesting because in County Leitrim we have a company called Masonite on the banks of the Shannon and a big factor in running the company is a vast supply of water. If that or another company like it came to another area seeking an assurance from the local authority that it could have a large supply of water for the business, the local authority could not give that guarantee. It would have to go back to Irish Water and that company would not give a hoot. The first thing it would do is employ some consultants and pay them a fortune to decide how the process would work. That is the kind of nonsense going on. When we remove control from local areas and give it to a big conglomerate, there are problems. That is the mistake being made by the Government throughout this process.

It is interesting that today we saw how the Government will be taken to the European Court in a bid to force the recovery of the €13 billion Apple tax because it has not succeeded yet in recovering that money. It is clear to all of us - let us call a spade a spade - that the money has not been recovered because the Government does not want to do it. It is embarrassed about how this came about in the first place. This company was evading tax in Ireland and a blind eye was being turned. Those in Europe tapped people on the shoulder, saying we were telling them about all the problems in the country but we were allowing this company away with €13 billion. If that were given to local authorities to fix leaks and look after the water supply around the country, how much would it do? It would make an immense difference. We must get real in what we are doing tonight. If we are interested in sorting out this problem, the money must be put into it.

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