Leo Varadkar (Dublin West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will give the Deputy that one. It is a fine hospital. The point I am making, which is also the truth, is that we now have major new hospitals under construction, which is the big deal, quite frankly. I hope a fourth one will be under construction by this time next year, which would be the new national maternity hospital on the Elm Park St. Vincent's campus.

As the Deputy knows, Páirc Uí Chaoimh has been built and was officially opened at the weekend. Newland's Cross has gone - the last set of traffic lights between Dublin and Cork. The N11 has been upgraded and New Ross and Enniscorthy roads are under construction. The Gort to Tuam motorway, which is the single biggest infrastructure project in the west of Ireland, is now complete, as is Luas CrossCity, which will be opened to passengers in the next couple of weeks. That is the report on progress made so far but I will be happy to add to it and give some more detail at a later stage.

Unfortunately, the EPA report comes as no surprise to anyone in this House. There are 40 locations around the country where raw sewage and wastewater is still being released into our rivers, seas and lakes. This should not be happening in a wealthy modern Western country. Many of the problems highlighted in the EPA report stem from a long-term legacy of bad policy such as the fact that we failed to invest in water and wastewater infrastructure, in part because it was funded by general taxation. One of the downsides of the abolition of water charges is that, once again, water and wastewater projects have to compete with health care, education and other projects for funding when they could have had a dedicated source of funding. Another factor was the very fragmented set up run by local authorities rather than a single utility model like the ESB or Bord Gáis Networks, which would have worked a lot better. It is now being put right. With Irish Water, we have a single utility model, which is very much the ESB model. It is a publicly owned utility with a national remit and expertise. So far, Irish Water's priority has been clean drinking water and a huge amount of progress has been made since 2014 when Irish Water was set up. The number of boil notices is down by 75%, 20,000 boil notices have been eliminated and 90 million litres of water is now being saved every day because of the first fix free programme so people can see the success Irish Water has had in improving our drinking water. Obviously, the next step will be moving to wastewater. At least five projects will be completed this year - Youghal, Belmullet, Rush, Killybegs and Bundoran. What is remarkable is the fact that there are still people in this House who oppose the Water Services Bill and still want to break up Irish Water.

2 o’clock

If there is one sure way of making sure we reverse the progress we have made in providing people with safe, clean drinking water, and making sure we get nothing done in the next number of years when it comes to wastewater and the discharge of raw sewage into our rivers and lakes it is to rip up Irish Water all over again. I would certainly encourage people who are opposing the Water Services Bill in the House and who still want Irish Water to be abolished to have some regard for our environment and public health and to drop their embargo on the Bill.

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