Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I endorse the call and encourage people to continue to conserve water. I agree that this definitely concerns domestic users but it also concerns businesses and the State. That is the immediate answer to the crisis we face in ensuring we do not run out of water. That immediate answer does not point to the cause of the crisis, however, or to what it is fundamentally about. As has been referred to in the debate, it is the absence of investment in water infrastructure over many years. We have a classic example of Noam Chomsky's description of the standard technique of privatisation, which is to defund and make sure something does not work in order that people will get angry and the infrastructure can be handed over to private capital. He left out an intermediate step that, which is the commodification of water through water charges.

It has been suggested that if we had water charges, we would not have this crisis. Thankfully this argument has not featured in the debate. It is factually incorrect because we would have had the exact same level of investment from Irish Water that we currently have. Therefore, we would be in the same circumstances.

The fundamental answer is investment in our water infrastructure. The Irish Water investment plan is inadequate because it does not deal with the deficit that built up over many years. There has been an average investment of approximately €500 million since 2000. We are facing an investment of approximately €680 million per year but that needs to be raised to €1 billion per year.

The only recommendation of the Oireachtas committee on water charges that the Government seems to be interested in implementing is that on charging for excessive water use. The referendum does not seem to be coming. The many conservation measures that were recommended by the committee have not been implemented.

They included a call for the introduction of a scheme like the building energy rating, BER, but also for water conservation, a proactive retrofitting programme to provide for the maximum level of water conservation, an ambitious amendment to existing building standards and regulations and an education campaign, such as that which exists in Wales. We need action on these matters now in order that we might deal with conservation.

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