Naoise Ó Cearúil (Kildare North, Fianna Fail)

I want to outline how the communications on burst water mains happens in Kildare. I will pick Maynooth as an example. I was a councillor there for close to 11 years before being elected to this House. I could get a call at 2 o'clock in the morning from a resident in a housing estate or from the local fire service telling me there is a burst water main. I then had to get on to Irish Water and the county council. After that, I got on to the local schools to let the principals know there was a burst water main. The principals then had to make a decision based on the communications from me not, might I add, from Irish Water on whether or not to open the school that day. We had multiple instances of that in Maynooth last year and in recent years. That should not be my role as a councillor nor as a TD. I am stepping into a void that Uisce Éireann is not filling, particularly when it comes to schools. We need to have a little bit of cop-on here.

Something that really irks me as well is when Irish Water comes back to us and to the public at large, referring to the public as "customers". The public are not customers of Irish Water. They are service users of a service that is being provided to them by the State.

In the half a minute I have left, while I speak about Maynooth, the Celbridge Road, where the burst water mains occur time and time again, as they still have not been repaired, has been extremely dangerous. There was an incident there last week when a student was hit by car. Thankfully, she has made a full recovery. This road has given rise to multiple incidents relating to water mains, traffic, and road safety issues for children. It is the bane of the lives of principals, parents and students in the town of Maynooth. Could urgent attention be given to that road, first by Irish Water, to ensure that works are completed and, more importantly, from a safety perspective for the students and staff in the school on the road?

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