Ruairi Ó Murchú (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I refer to the Acting Chair's own interaction with the Ceann Comhairle earlier in the debate. Hopefully, all Ministers responsible heard that it can be incredibly difficult to get decent communications from Irish Water. We have all said that we need to set a date for a referendum to enshrine public ownership of the water system in the Constitution. Beyond that, we want to make sure that workers’ conditions are dealt with properly and fairly. We know that some of that has to be left to the workers, employers and unions. However, anybody who has dealt with Irish Water over the past would not give the company ten out of ten for communications.

I will speak about my town of Dundalk.

Obviously, there was a CRU investigation in respect of the Cavanhill treatment plant. There were breaches relating to manganese levels in 2020. It happened again in June 2021. I am reading from a press release I put out when I dealt with Irish Water at the housing committee. Throughout the summer, we were told that by 14 September flushing processes would be in place, everything would be dealt with and the communications issues of Irish Water would have been considered. In recent years, we had issues that were initially thought to relate to iron oxide but ended up being manganese. I get that there is a higher level of manganese in the water at this time. I get that research is being done in that regard but if that is what we are going to be dealing with in the likes of Dundalk, the problem is that the manganese reacts with chlorine and we end up with brown water. We are told that the water we are getting, brown as it is, is very healthy, although I am not sure everyone necessarily believes that. The problem, however, is that we were told that everything would be done and dusted in respect of Dundalk and its outlying areas by 14 September. I saw the list of areas that were being addressed and raised with Irish Water the fact that many areas were not on the list. The other problem is that 14 September has passed. I assume some of this gets worse in summer but I am still getting videos and pictures of brown water. I can see it in my own house.

Beyond that, what we need is proper communications. We need a process to deal with it. We are going to be dealing with manganese for the next while, so, rather than flushing, we need to deal with a process and we need the Government to take action on it.

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