George Lawlor (Wexford, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I concur with the Ceann Comhairle's words and congratulate Ballymitty national school on its great success and welcome them to the Public Gallery.

When we talk about Irish Water-Uisce Éireann the words "chaos" and "chaotic" often spring to mind. Despite the billions of euro in resources we have had in this country for quite some time, during the past number of years in particular, time and again we see failures of systems.

I am disappointed the Minister, Deputy Browne, had to leave the Chamber but last September I, along with the Minister, Deputy Browne, attended the unveiling of new reservoir tanks in Kilmallock Bridge water treatment plant in Ballymurn in County Wexford. It serves approximately 8,000 customers and the new tanks were to guarantee supply. Unfortunately, since the tanks were installed, we have seen 14 separate outages where Uisce Éireann customers have suffered greatly. The reason for the outages is that while there was investment in the reservoir tanks, there was no investment in the plant, so every time the plant broke down, the problems reoccurred. Since last September, on 14 separate occasions, we have seen serious issues.

This week Whiterock Hill in Wexford town, an area where there are more than 1,000 homes, suffered yet another outage of water. It is the eighth outage so far this year in Whiterock Hill in Wexford town.

The local crèche, Bumblebees, had to close its doors and 42 families were left without childcare, just a knock-on impact of what it means to lose water in our communities, homes and businesses. Every time it happens and the residents report it, all they are given is a reference number and little or no explanation. They are left to their own devices to try to manage without water in their area.

The water that is supplied to them in the first place comes from Mayglass water treatment plant where the water is described as being off the scale when it comes to lime content. Just as my colleague described what is happening in Mallow, the hard water is destroying the appliances in the homes of the 10,000 customers who receive water from this water treatment plant. Kettles, showers and washing machines are being destroyed almost on an annual basis as they seek to battle against the hard water.

I recently came across the case of a house in the heart of Wexford town on Newtown Road - the Ceann Comhairle will be familiar with the area - where a one-off house was built and the connection fee from Irish Water was €33,000. That was the amount that was demanded and had to be given to Irish Water to connect to this one-off house a few hundred yards from the heart of Wexford town to connect to the main water supply. Absolutely no cognisance was taken of how many other people could connect with this. The original person getting the connection was charged the full whack of €33,000, a young family building a home for themselves.

The service level agreement with councils is about to come to an end and already Irish Water is abandoning many of the services that the councils would have provided back in the day. For instance, sewerage problems that occur in backyards are now being left to the homeowners, residents and private individuals on the basis that if it is not a mainline Irish Water pipeline, that is tough luck and is their problem. That must change and the services that were provided very well by the councils and council workers over the years must remain in place even though this service level agreement has gone.

We are told we have an ambitious programme for housing and yet developers, approved housing bodies and anyone involved in the building of housing will say that one of the biggest issues they face is Irish Water. They cannot even get certainty as to what they are to pay for the connection, yet they are supposed to construct houses and know what the overall cost will be. Costs are different for all the private companies. I urge the Minister of State to intervene in this chaotic company and put it back on track.

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