Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The facts are that of the €10 billion that is proposed, €5 billion is to comply with EU legislation. It is to bring plants that are not compliant at the moment into compliance. Another €3 billion of it is for the Shannon project. What the Government is saying, then, is that the Government has €2 billion over five years to produce an additional 30,000 houses every year. To be quite frank about it, whoever did those figures - and I know it was not the Taoiseach - does not have a bull's clue of what is going on in this country in terms of trying to supply water and sewerage plants for the projects in question.

Last year, the budget for subcontractors working for Irish Water on repairs, leaks and maintenance was gone by August and 500 subcontractors - people out working - were laid off. They were laid off because the budgets had been blown. From August until Christmas, it was tough luck with regard to leaks or repairs. They had to be left until the next year and the same will happen this year because of the way Irish Water is doing its budgets. I ask the Taoiseach to look at this.

Given that we are talking about an extra 300,000 houses on top of the 30,000 target, we must look at the figures that Irish Water is giving. The Shannon project is a once in a lifetime project for Irish Water and should have a completely separate budget from all of the other projects.

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