Dáil debates

Tuesday, 9 April 2019

Ceisteanna - Questions (Resumed) - Ceisteanna ar Sonraíodh Uain Dóibh - Priority Questions

Water Services Infrastructure

6:45 pm

Photo of Mattie McGrathMattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

This pipeline has been described as one of the most important infrastructural projects in the history of the State. The Shannon-Dublin water pipeline will cost more than €1.2 billion, and if it is like the children's hospital, it will cost twice that. It is intended to supply 40% of Irish households unconnected with, and around, Dublin with water from the River Shannon by 2025. It will go into a leaking system that is leaking nearly 60% of the water. We should be in kindergarten. I do not deny the people of Dublin water and we are not mean spirited in Tipperary or in the Shannon region either. Fix the leaks. Sort out the water problem first.

Does the Minister have oversight or not? I tabled a parliamentary question and he said he has not. Now he says he has. This will be another national monument of embarrassment to the Minister and the Government for 2025. It will look for an extension to 2030 because it will still be leaking into the ground. Fix the leaks and preserve the very valuable resource of treated water. It is pointless pumping treated water into a creaking system. If the Minister was a householder with a well that was giving trouble and he could not keep running pumps to supply the water in the well, he would fix the leaks first, and very fast. This is public money and he can do what he likes with it with no accountability.

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