Seán Canney (Galway East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to discuss Irish Water. I accept the fact that it needs to be put into a single entity and that it be separated out in order that it can have full responsibility for what it does and that we, as elected Members, have an opportunity to question its performance, its spending and the value for money it gets out of that. There will be an obligation on Irish Water to appear before the Committee of Public Accounts and other committees from time to time, which is welcome.

We need to make sure that Irish Water is protected from privatisation. It is a commitment of Government that this will be done and it needs to be done in a meaningful way. Having said that, I would like to move on to some of the problems I encounter with Irish Water. If the company is to be effective in delivering what it will supposed to deliver, which is safe water and wastewater treatment to our towns, villages and cities, the first thing we need to make sure is that it is resourced properly.

I look at issues that arise. I have concerns if I go back prior to Irish Water. Galway County Council had a schedule of wastewater treatment plants to come on stream over time. One of them would have been a major wastewater treatment plant for the east of the city to serve the Ardaun corridor, which is the next development phase out of the city towards the east of the county and Athenry. A site selection process was in place. Feasibility studies have been done and it has not moved one inch since then.

We talked about the possibility of getting the likes of Intel in to Galway to set up a microchip processing plant. I understand that other major chip manufacturing companies are looking at the same site now. We should have the infrastructure in place to take on a project for which we have the land - a project that would be as the same size and calibre of what is going on in Leixlip. It is important that we front load our infrastructure investment to make sure that particular area is serviced by wastewater and water.

We have an Industrial Development Authority, IDA, Ireland site in Athenry, which is at the crossroads of the railways and the motorways in the county that go north to south and east to west. Approximately four years ago, under the previous Government, we succeeded in getting Irish Water to upgrade the treatment plant. That was phase 1 of the project for Athenry. Phase 2 was to put in a pipe network, which was to happen within two years. That pipe network was to connect all of the existing housing estates in the town to this new upgraded treatment plant. That has not happened. It has not even gone out to tender. It is still in some design process and has not happened. It is probably two years overdue at this stage.

Meanwhile new schools are being built, including a Gaelscoil campus. We have other projects to do in Athenry and we do not have the infrastructure. We have the plant but we do not have the pipes to feed from the private treatment plants that Irish Water will refuse to take in charge. We have a solution, which is to pipe from them all the way to the new treatment plant. That has not been done. That is stifling growth in Athenry, which is a growth centre with train connectivity to Athlone, Limerick and Galway city. We have to think about what we are doing.

I have other issues with regard to smaller towns such as Craughwell, which is another growth centre outside of Galway, where the treatment plant site was selected by Galway County Council. That has not moved. We have six private wastewater treatment plants in Corrofin, a village, all built on the edge of the River Clare. These treatment plants are not working to proper standards. They are not being maintained because the people living in the houses cannot afford it. We are living in an era when we are fast approaching an environmental time bomb there.

There is a considerable tract of land in Corrofin village that is primed for development, but nothing can be built on it because An Bord Pleanála has decided that an application to build housing there was premature until a municipal wastewater treatment plant was built. That decision was probably made in 2007 or 2008. We have had nothing since that with regard to even putting it on an agenda to get it done. It is the same in Abbeyknockmoy, Laban and Ardrahan, where we cannot build the houses people want to build in our villages because we do not have the wastewater treatment plants.

Irish Water will say it does not have the funding to do it. It is prioritising places where there are centres of population that it needs to service such as Dublin. I understand that the money that was supposed to go into Athenry was diverted to a project in Dublin. That is fine. I do not begrudge anybody getting their infrastructure but I need to see that the infrastructure that was planned by Galway County Council and deemed to be feasible to carry out is done as a matter of urgency.

We were talking about energy earlier during my group's Private Members' motion and we had a good debate on it. If we do not have electricity, water or wastewater where are we going in terms of trying to build houses to solve the crisis we have? I do not blame Irish Water. I blame the fact the Government is not providing enough funding for it to be able to carry out the job it is charged with carrying out.

Another issue that concerns me is at the moment if you are looking for a letter of consent to apply for planning permission for a house and you are on a public scheme owned by Irish Water it takes up to 12 weeks to get a letter to confirm the utility will give you consent to apply for planning permission and that it will give you water. That is not right. If you are successful you go to the next stage where you connect the water to your house. You again have to apply for a connection. If it is along the public road Irish Water will have to carry out the work itself and use its own set of contractors. The rate they will charge is very high and can be very serious. In one case lately, a young woman who is building a house with her husband found the cost of providing the water to the meter outside her door was €60,000. It was never envisaged it would cost that but because it was coming along a public road it cost so much per metre. The 250 m at €300 per metre was €75,000, less certain discounts etc. That kind of thing has got to be taken by the scruff of the neck and just thrown out the door. We need to ensure people get reasonable costs for utilities that are being provided. I assume the reason so much is being charged is the local authorities have put long-term damage charges onto the digging-up of public roads and as well as that, Irish Water must try to make a few pounds someplace when it is not getting enough to resource itself.

The other area that is of concern to me is that in County Galway, as well as in Clare, Mayo and Donegal, there is a huge amount of private housing schemes that have private wastewater treatment plants and the responsibility for managing these is being left to the residents. They are not qualified to do it and they have not got the resources to do it. Again, we are seeing that people cannot sell a house in these estates because they cannot get confirmation the wastewater treatment plant is in public ownership. It is creating huge problems in trying to get people to take an interest in their estate because they are deflated by the fact they bought these houses, got mortgages for them and now find they are spending much more money every year and at the same time paying the local property tax.

I have raised a lot of issues. There are many things we need to get right. This is an opportunity for the Government and all of us here to say let us get behind Irish Water. The best way to do that is to give it the resources it needs.

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