Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 34:

In page 17, lines 32 and 33, to delete “section 22.”.” and substitute the following:“section 22.

(7) Recognising that Irish Water is a fully State funded entity, Irish Water shall be required to report, as required, to the Comptroller and Auditor General and to be amenable to all reporting guidelines and inspection and audit powers of the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General as provided for in the Comptroller and Auditor General (Amendment) Act 1993.”.”.

When Irish Water was set up, it was a full cost recovery model and it was intended to be a commercial semi-State company that was going to be able to raise funds off-balance sheet. That is now very different, on foot of a very big public campaign and, essentially, it is fully publicly funded. This year, 2017, the amount that was provided to Irish Water is estimated to be €753 million and it is very important that we have proper oversight when such a large amount of money is at stake. We know there are issues that require scrutiny, for example, procurement. A very large number of people transferred from the local authorities to Irish Water, which means there will be pay and pensions issues. We know that some 70% of the amount that was allocated will be spent by Ervia and a significant amount of money will be transferred between both elements of Irish Water. Ervia is currently hiring consultants and there were headlines earlier this year when there was a €70 million spend on consultants. While that may be money well spent, we do not know. What we require is the scrutiny to ensure the money is well spent.

This issue has arisen on a couple of occasions to date in the Committee of Public Accounts, where we looked to see that there was the kind of oversight one would expect to be in place. If this company was constructed from scratch, there would have been a full role for the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is essential, when such large amounts of public money are at stake, that we do not end up in a year's time asking why did we not have this oversight and scrutiny. We can do this now in a proactive way so that we end up with the kind of oversight and regulation that should be in place. I ask for the support of the Chamber to make sure this happens.

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