Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I understand this is a technical Bill. It provides for the dissolution of Ervia, the transfer of its functions, assets, records and staff to Gas Networks Ireland. I understand that. The first thing stated in the explanatory memorandum is:

In 2018 the Government decided that Irish Water (Uisce Eireann) should be separated from Ervia and made into a standalone entity. On 20 October 2020 the Government approved the memorandum of the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, which outlined the plan for the development and drafting of a general scheme to achieve this. The Government also approved the development and drafting of a general scheme of a separate Bill to facilitate the integration of Ervia into Gas Networks Ireland...

It goes on to state:

The establishment of two separate State companies, one to operate the gas network, and one to develop our water services, provides the optimal solution to meet the future challenges of decarbonising our energy supply and modernising our water [network].

I had been engaging with the Office of Parliamentary Legal Advisers, OPLA, for about a year. We had been trying to work on constructing a Bill to try to separate out Irish Water so that it would come under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General given the very large amount of money that is under the remit of Irish Water. The level of oversight is not what it should be for the amount of public money that is going into this company. That is very much an understatement.

We also have experience of what happened in respect of the transfer of staff from local authorities to Irish Water. We can see the kind of thing that can happen and what should be avoided. I will go into that in a little while. Irish Water was set up by the then government on the basis that it was going to be full cost recovery from both the commercial and domestic users. That would have created a very significant burden. I never believe that initiative was about water at all or, in fact, it was a reaction to it. I believed it was very much to do with people’s incomes contracting, the universal social charge, the local property tax and other issues, coupled with the loss of services. This was very much the straw that broke the camel’s back as opposed to being about water per se.

We are now at a point where we are undoing some of that and it is quite complex because it is not just one piece of legislation which is required. I want to see a situation where citizens are entitled to a service and pay for that service through their taxation as opposed to being customers, so we have to get away from that earlier model.

We were told at the time that we were going to have a much better system because we would have one operator and were not going to have 31 local authorities. In fact, however, we can see that most of the work was done by staff in local authorities and some of them have transferred.

I refer to the point made by Deputy Bacik on Gas Networks Ireland. Earlier this year, which is not that long ago, strike notice was served in respect of the transfer of staff. The issue went to the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, and arising from that a framework was developed which is very useful and pertinent in the context of this. There were no compulsory transfers or redundancies and it was about all number of things, incorporating a dozen different aspects which were agreed. The dispute was avoided as a consequence of that. It is very important that we have the kind of oversight one would have when it comes to a public company.

For some time I have been seeking to have Uisce Éireann made accountable to the Comptroller and Auditor General and to have it separated from the Ervia group. Uisce Éireann has to be considered in isolation as a fully State-funded entity and it should be required to be under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General, which would then bring it under the Committee of Public Accounts' orbit. One can have real accountability there in a very public way which is very important.

I would like to hear from the Minister of State as there was nothing in his speech about that. I know this is just an aspect of it but it is a very important one because of the amount of money we are talking about here. The total funding requirement in respect of the strategic funding plan sets out a total of source of funds of Irish Water for the years 2019 to 2024. When one goes through this document, one finds non-domestic, new domestic and government subvention, new connection revenues and domestic excess charges, non-domestic borrowings, and capital contribution. In total it comes to over €11 billion. There is no way that this company, if it had been set up as a public company, would not have been under the remit of Comptroller and Auditor General.

It matters how companies or State entities are run. We have seen long delays, for example, in respect of water connections. We talk about housing being the key issue and there could be a blockage there. There is a great deal of development in my area and people are contacting my office when they face delays. For example, last year people contacted me who had a three to six month delay where they had received a mortgage offer but could not get a connection. It is not just what is spent but it is the value we get for it and the functioning of the company which needs that kind of oversight. It is very important the Minister of State comes back to us when responding to deal with the issue as to what exactly the pathway is here and whether this is the last piece needed before it goes under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General.

I want to give the Minister of State an indication of some of the kinds of things which one can see are happening. For example, Irish Water will have a contract with a contractor to do a large piece of work where before it used to be the local authority. This is now done by Irish Water, in the case of water and wastewater. The local authority cannot apply penalties, for example, and must have Irish Water do this. It is now a two-stage process.

There is a further example of a big scheme under way in Celbridge. It was supposed to be completed this time last year but it is still under way. People completely expect that one cannot make an omelette without breaking eggs, and that this work will be disruptive, but this work was unnecessarily disruptive and long and it has left quite an amount of damage. The interesting thing is that now that the job is nearly complete, it has been discovered that another pipeline needs to be replaced right through the same location which means that it will have to be dug up again. That is the kind of thing which very much infuriates people. The reason this has to be done now is that for one week the water was off for five days in a row. It was repeatedly turned off and on for these five days. Households, cafés, restaurants and businesses are all wondering whether they can function in that kind of environment. I have to say that I do not believe people have a great deal of confidence when they see a job that has been poorly managed. This job was so poorly managed that for the first time in five years, the local authority withheld or annulled a road opening licence because it was not satisfied with how Irish Water was completing the job. This came to a point where one could not go out on a bicycle on this road as one would be killed because it is so lumpy and bumpy. It will be next year before this is done. That kind of oversight is completely essential.

We were told this sort of dual relationship would be so much smoother when Irish Water dealt with this where. In fact, this it is actually causing some impediments. I acknowledge some, if not much, of the work Irish Water is doing is excellent but the local authority is the roads authority. It has to manage not only the road opening licences but also has to manage the restoration and be satisfied with the restoration, which it is not in this case.

It must also be involved in traffic management. In this particular job, people were nearly killed because the stop-go system failed and we had to get the Garda out late at night. When a job is dangerous, we have to question where the oversight is. Not only does Irish Water need financial oversight, but it needs better oversight as well. I would like the Minister to respond to this. What are the pieces involved? Will it be under the Comptroller and Auditor General? What does this Bill do to bring it closer to that? As far as I can see, we are undoing what was set up for something that was entirely different, which was about the full cost recovery. Now we are trying to undo that and putting in a very large amount of necessary money. We need to make sure it is spent in a way that gets the best value for money. We also need to make sure that the company functions in a way that ensures there is no waste and no unnecessary reduction. We also need to look at how we do that. Some sanctions must be built into tenders to ensure that if something goes off the rails, there is not a duplicate in the cost. When we dig up a road, we need to be doing two things at the same time that need to be done, rather than going back after it has been surfaced to dig it up again. It drives people bonkers. I would like to hear what the Minister has to say about how this gets us to the kind of oversight which is absolutely necessary.

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