Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I appreciate the Ceann Comhairle allowing me to contribute this time because my colleagues needed the other time. They had a lot to say on this issue, being from rural Ireland, as we all are in the Rural Independent Group. I am the same. I do not have any personal animosity towards the Minister of State, or the Minister, Deputy Eamon Ryan, whose grandmother - a sheanmháthair - agus a sheanathair, an bheirt acu ó Tiobraid Árann Theas, his seanathair as Caravansary, a wonderful public house in The Glen of Aherlow, and his granny, apparently, from Clonoulty. It is common enough for a lot of people who come to Dublin - the first or second generation - to throw away their wellies and never again want to see them or hear about them. It is kind of see no evil, speak no evil and hear no evil and just to tut-tut and say we are away from that, we will become cosmopolitan and forget about the country. I do not mind the Government forgetting about the country at all, because it has, but I would like it if it would leave us alone to eke out an existence and live a happy enough existence like our forefathers and forbears did. It wants to persecute and destroy us and make us impoverished. That is what is happening to our country. I am not being alarmist. The Government cannot seem to see it.

I too, like Deputies Michael and Danny Healy-Rae, Deputy Michael Collins and Deputy Nolan, would say, if you get on to Bord na Móna, the bogs and the just transition, it is the most unjust transition you could ever design. Then there is what the Government did with the Barryroe oil field, which I called an act of national sabotage. Companies were bringing money into the State. They wrote and wrote to the Minister for the Environment, Climate and Communications and whatever else but he would not answer the letters for three and a half years. It frustrated them. He then decided to block that pipe by putting concrete into it. I have children - they are reared, thank God. I also have grandchildren. They were playing outside with sand and gravel and they blocked the pipe from the sink into the drain. They would be buachaillí agus cailíní dána but to think a Government agency would do that as an act of decommissioning - it is one thing talking about guns or something else - and to a national treasure and piece of infrastructure.

The men in the white coats should carry out investigations into what is going on in this country. We do not have any mental health services but something is badly wrong if people are just carrying out national sabotage that is undermining our strategic investment. When I think back to T.K. Whitaker, Seán Lemass and the people who founded this country and, indeed, the visionaries who brought electrification to all of rural Ireland, they did some job.

For the last ten years, we have talked about broadband and we cannot bring it in. We are spending hundreds of millions. There are many good private providers, one-man and one-woman bands, and perhaps a couple of people working who have their own masts and provide it in local areas. The Government is banishing them and putting them out of existence because there is this new provider that will give it to so many homes a minute or an hour. It has failed utterly to deliver a basic tool necessary to carry out business, to be educated and to transact anything now. For rince classes, ranganna rince, for example, they get the music and the different styles of dances and tunes on their phones. They need good broadband in a hall to do that. Farmers need it for satnav and GPS in the fields spreading fertiliser. They do not want to overspread fertiliser, so they need that, but they do not have the broadband to do it. The Government must know that. If it does not, it should.

I refer to Irish Water, now Uisce Éireann. I always say the only thing I liked about Irish Water was the cúpla focal Gaeilge - Uisce Éireann. I salute and thank the county council officials, outdoor staff and the plumbing section especially, and the ordinary general operatives, for the work they have done. Going back further, I salute the men, helped by the women, in the video I saw recently of the Ballylooby water scheme when it was being dug by hand. The late Joe Rea was involved in it. He became a fairly notable IFA leader and brought water to people. There were group schemes, and the Ceann Comhairle will know what I am talking about. We assisted them in some cases - a lot of them before I arrived. When I was walking home from school I saw Willie Barry, who is still alive. I saluted him in Cappawhite, laying pipes up my road and bringing water to our houses. Before that, we had to draw it from the hand pump down the road - the Graugh we called it - with a horse and cart or tractor and cart. We had to fill it by hand, pump it into buckets and barrels for the cattle. That is the way it was, and not 100 years ago. Those visionary people brought us water, as people from Ireland working in different organisations do now in Third World countries in Africa. We know the value of water.

Then, there was the big furore with Irish Water and the whole hijacked debate around it. Water is a very valuable commodity. One cannot do anything without it. The group schemes were taken over by the county council and many were decommissioned. There were good supplies of water. Then Irish Water took over.

In the transposition of the statutory instruments across from the county councils to the function of Irish Water, one very important part, namely, the ancillary drains at the back of houses, was left out. They were built and put in by the council but now the households are left to deal with it. I tried to get that amended in legislation, as was done in England, but we could not do it here. It is a case of to hell with the people. Let them sort out their own you know what.

As for Irish Water, this year there was a big furore. Other speakers thanked God that it was resolved, but it has not been resolved in Tipperary. There was a handover of everything by 20 September, the same day we arrived back from our recess. It is kind of resolved in Cork and there is something in Waterford but we in Tipperary are still dealing with it. There was industrial action during the year by union workers, whom I salute and support. They are entitled to have certainty of tenure and employment and to have their rights and the increments they earned with the county council carried across to Irish Water if they are working for it. At my last engagement with senior management within the county council, which was at an Oireachtas briefing, they gleefully told us that from 20 September they would have no more to do with water. I met the workers on the same day. It is like the management is glad Irish Water caught it and is saying "Off with ye" to the workers as they are delighted to get rid of it.

The situation for the people who have group schemes is scandalous. Many of those group schemes have now been turned off and we are told they are not fit for purpose. Last night, I raised a Topical Issue matter about the baile of Cluain Meala and the water situation there. I thank the Ceann Comhairle for selecting that matter. In Clonmel there are valuable supplies from Poulavanogue, the Ragwell and from up in Glenary. All three venues are in County Waterford but they do not mind giving us water to supply our town and county. Irish Water wants to shut off the finest one we have, namely, the Poulavanogue one, which worked all summer and did not have any outages. Irish Water is going to stop it and then pump the water back up the road to the people. It is lunacy. Irish Water has a fine reservoir there. It told us at a public meeting that the reservoir was damaged outside. Now it is telling us the reservoir is damaged inside. It does not even know where the reservoir is. That is the major problem with Irish Water - it does not know where the infrastructure is located.

Good men who worked as caretakers on the water system have approached me on the street. About six months ago, a man was almost crying telling me about it. He told me he enjoyed his job and that he had often worked with me. People rang him at all hours of the night and day and he kept the water going. Six months before he retired, he invited Irish Water to send a man out with him in order that he could pass along his knowledge, help to map it out and point out the location of all the air valves, sluice valves, stop valves and all those key pieces and joinings, such as where another main can be added in if there is an outage in an area. Irish Water refused his offer. Imagine an insult like that. He wanted to impart to the next person the knowledge he had built up. Now what happens when the water goes out? What happened recently in Glenahiry? Irish Water was dissatisfied with the council caretaker up there and his staff. It sent in a SWAT team who worked in the plant for three days. They turned off, moved and twisted every valve and did tomfoolery of all kinds. At 5 p.m. on the third day they said they had failed and they were out of there. They told nobody else. The town was without water. The poor caretaker had to go back in and try to find out what valves they had moved. They kept no account of what they did. They do not know or understand the plant. We had a very wet summer but there is no water in the pipes in the houses. The Talbot Hotel in Clonmel was without water for 40 days between April and early September.

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