Jackie Cahill (Tipperary, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Rural Independent Group for tabling the motion. Fianna Fáil supports it. A central component of the confidence and supply agreement relating to water charges was fairness to both rural and urban dwellers. This is also a key outcome of the Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services. This agreement has secured a series of funding increases for group water schemes and established a working group to review funding, combined with a coherent plan for taking in charge estates in rural towns and villages. In County Tipperary, 11,475 houses are not connected to a public supply. They are supplied by private group schemes or their own wells or have no piped water supply. This represents 19% of households in the country. An additional 1,717 households, representing 3% of all households, are supplied by public group water schemes. This is where the network is controlled by a group scheme but the scheme receives its water from a public source. This means that 22% of households in Tipperary are not supplied directly by Irish Water. I am sure the figures are the same for other rural counties. It is vital that these households are treated equally when it comes to supply of domestic water. Fianna Fáil is committed to ensuring equality of treatment between rural and urban dwellers in accessing water services, which is why we support the motion.

A key outcome of the special Oireachtas committee on water charges was he establishment of a working group to verify the subsidy levels needed for rural dwellers and those on the public water supply. The work of the group is ongoing and this motion reflects much of its remit. Fianna Fáil has already boosted funding to group water schemes under the confidence and supply agreement. We will press on with this working group as a matter of priority to ensure equity between urban and rural dwellers in the context of domestic water supplies.

New subsidy arrangements have already been put in place, endorsed by a special delegate conference of the Federation of Group Water Schemes on 13 December 2017, and they came into effect on 1 January 2018. It is estimated that the revised subsidy levels will cost approximately €23.3 million per year compared with an average annual cost of €19.5 million for past comparable years. Capital funding for the rural water programme is set to rise by €5 million to €25 million per annum in 2019. This enhanced level of investment will be maintained up to 2021. Including the funding being provided this year, a total of €95 million has been secured for the period 2018 to 2021. A central recommendation contained in the report of the Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services, endorsed by both Houses of the Oireachtas in April 2017, is that there should be equity of treatment and equivalent financial support between households using public water services and those availing of private water services. That must and will be delivered upon.

See this speech in context