Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I too am glad to be able speak on the Bill. Ar an chéad dul síos, I wish to say that my company does work for Irish Water. We used to do it for county councils and it was then transferred over to Irish Water, which is an entity I do not have any faith in. It has no understanding of the serious problems we have.

As the previous speaker mentioned, water is going to be very scarce this year. We can see the rivers and streams are low so early in the year. There will be water outages and everything else but we need to tackle the waste of water by consumers and Irish Water. People ring up to try to report leaks. It is frustrating to see such big leaks. The wastage of water in this city is outrageous. More than 40% of the water is wasted. We are among the worst in the world for it. Some Third World countries are not as bad. The fact Irish Water is now going to pipe water from the River Shannon to Dublin is something I strongly oppose. It would be going up to a leaky system where the water can be contaminated. Anywhere the water can leak out, pollutants can leak back into the system. It is madness to think Irish Water would not look at doing those repairs. A golden opportunity was missed during Covid to do that kind of work when the streets and roads were quiet.

Irish Water says it wants more cash. Last night in Clonmel Park Hotel, my colleagues and I met a team from Clonmel who told us how they are bringing in water from Monroe. This is a hard water system, which the north of Clonmel already has, and the lime in the water from the borehole is crippling families and businesses. This borehole does not have an infinite life and is subject to outages because of power cuts. It was out for three or four days two months ago as a result of unexplained outages. Irish Water is spending €21 million to bring in this water and give it to all of the town of Clonmel.

The town of Clonmel has been serviced by the Glenary and Poulavanogue schemes. They are both based in County Waterford but that is how the system is set up; County Waterford is on the other side of the river. The Poulavanogue scheme was built by the British. It is an excellent and wonderful mountain stream supply. The treatment plant there was maintained for decades by Tommy Hartigan and other Tipperary council employees, or Clonmel corporation employees at the time. It was looked after and nourished. The supply flows down the hill into Clonmel. My office is on this supply, as is the whole centre of the town. That supply never had a boil water notice on it.

Irish Water now tells us now the EPA wants higher standards. The EPA wants ridiculously high standards. First, I would describe the disconnecting going on up there as an act of vandalism. It is a wonderful supply that should be kept. There is a reservoir in the Rag Well that Irish Water says is leaky and it is doing an examination on it. This could be filled from the scheme so as to have as an extra back-up. Irish Water is depending on a pump to pump all the water into Clonmel. It is going to pump it up to Giant's Grave to fill a reservoir that was constructed there some years ago, but we are depending on a pumping system. The businesses and households in Clonmel will not know what hit them when this water comes on stream in September or whenever Irish Water is going to connect it. It is doing all the facilitation works at the moment. The people of Clonmel will not know what hit them. There will be damage to all the equipment. We will see what will happen to kettles and other utensils, whatever about the fine machines and high-spec technical machines for cooking and baking - you name it - in all the restaurants, hairdressers and everything else. There will be enormous problems. Irish Water refused point blank to put in a softener at the plant, at source. It could do so as there is plenty of space for it, but it will not. It still expects businesses to pay for this water, however, and it is going to do damage. There are going to be unbelievable issues. That is apart from the fact we had a very wet summer in Clonmel last year but, all through the year, day-in, day-out, there were outages of the system, which was fed from three sources - Glenary, Poulavanogue and at Moyle Rovers at the north of the town. The Ardfinnan regional water scheme comes into the west of the town as well.

It is so hard to deal with Irish Water on the ground. Tipperary County Council, South Tipperary County Council and Clonmel Borough Council had a wonderful network of supervisors. They knew every pipe, stopcock and air valve. The lads in Irish Water do not to know and would not engage with people who were retiring. Some of the retiring workers told me that, six months before they left, they offered to show the people taking over where all the valves were and to help them to understand the network, but the lads in Irish Water said "No" to that offer. Now, with the representatives and everything else, you are talking to people who are doing their jobs but they do not know the system or where the weaknesses and strong points are. Fundamentally, they are not listening, and is mór an trua é. Níl siad ag éisteacht le héinne.

Last night, there were ten members of Irish Water who spoke to us for two hours about consolidation. That was the great word they used. They had all these buzzwords but I honestly have to say they do not understand what they are doing, and that is the fundamental problem. I have called numerous times for them to be stood down and responsibility given back to the county council.

Some Deputies might say I have gone away from speaking on the Bill. This is an issue to do with water. As Deputy Gogarty said, people should get a fair and reasonable supply of water and, after that, there should be a charge for what is wasted. At present, businesses are paying for water coming in and going out and it is not fair on them. They pay it - they have to pay it - and that is fine; they use a lot more of it. The situation is that water supply in many parts of the country, as well as the sewerage and wastewater systems, leaves an awful lot to be desired. The entity we know as Uisce Éireann is a failed one, set up by Phil Hogan, that has not served the public and I do not believe it will succeed.

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