Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I never suggested that the water in Monroe treatment plant was in any way unsafe. My office in Clonmel is on the Poulavanogue supply, the soft water. I think I look healthy enough. The water is perfect. It is State vandalism to dismantle a perfect scheme. It is a backup and it is being dismantled altogether. The pump supply had an outage this week. Clonmel was without water for nearly 50 days last year, maybe more. It is continually being interrupted. We have the Glenary supply, which I know well, the Poulavanogue supply and the Monroe treatment plant. The well will not last. Any household knows that wells run out and the source might go down. The failure of Irish Water to give answers about why the well stopped functioning a number of times in the past week is very worrying.

The Minister of State referred to the website and everything else. It is lovely on paper but it is not functioning. Irish Water is not functioning as a utilities company and the sooner it is stood down, the better. No one from Irish Water will engage and those who will do not know what you are talking about. It does not want to take experience from retiring personnel who have offered to show people where all the connections and valves are. Irish Water knows everything, yet it knows nothing. There are none so blind as those who cannot see at all. The businesspeople and householders in the greater part of old Clonmel will not accept this because it will cost them a fortune. It will damage all their machines, including high-spec machines for catering, washing and everything. It is utter madness to destroy an old functioning water supply that has supplied Clonmel for hundreds of years, and this all in the name of modernisation.

The standards that have been set are too high. That is the problem. The reservoirs are tripping out because it is all computerised and the standards have been set too high. They need to be examined by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. We need common sense to prevail. We need to keep the soft water and we do not need to destroy a perfectly functioning source that continues to supply the greater part of the town of Clonmel, the heart of Clonmel town.

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