Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent)

Ar an gcéad dul síos, ba mhaith liom buíochas a ghabháil for allowing me to table this Topical Issue today. I declare an interest in that a company I am involved in does some work for Irish Water. No disrespect to the Minister of State, Deputy Richmond, but I am disappointed that the Minister or the Minister of State with responsibility is not here. That is the real problem. There is absolutely zero accountability with Irish Water to us public representatives or, never mind us, to the public who depend on this water. Clonmel town - Deputy Murphy was here and he is as well aware as I am - is a chronic situation. I spoke to a company five minutes ago. They have been onto me every week. Sixty-five jobs are about to leave the town because the company cannot use the water. It has to bring in tankers to have clean water to use for its manufacturing product. The jobs are leaving and going to the northeast - just imagine. This is chronic. There are people in charge who do not have a clue and do not seem care.

I meet engineering staff who I talk to, and they understand the water. I meet executives, different executives and more executives. They are bamboozled talking about investments. There are investments going on - we accept that - but there is also damage being done to the water services that have supplied Clonmel for a century and a half. Clonmel, before Irish Water took over and until recently, was using 220 cu. m of water per hour. That was being supplied from Glenary and the reservoir south of the town up on the Comeraghs. That was being supplied by one 10 in. main in around Kilmacomma and one 7 in. main going to the reservoir. They took out the 7 in. main, with a big investment, put in a 9 in. main and increased the water into the reservoir, but they would not listen to anybody and increased the pipes going out. Then what did they do? They sabotaged the 10 in. main, which had been laid about 22 years ago. I remember it well. It could supply so much of the water into the town and now we are depending on the reservoir and the plant. It is under pressure. Every evening it is down, down, down low. It cannot maintain this. I argued this with Irish Water, as did others, prior to it doing this work. The contractors that did it knew it was madness. Imagine that they capped the main going into Kilmacomma, County Waterford. It is a 10 in. PVC main, but other mains have asbestos and suffer from other kinds of poor quality. This is a perfect main. It supplies two thirds of the town, including the hospital. For the first time ever, the hospital ran out of water two weeks ago and it had to get in tankers. This is sinful and shameful that Irish Water can do this kind of blackguarding with no recourse to anybody. It has men there who know the system, but it does not want to engage with them. It has transferred one of them to Carrick-On-Suir. He knows the water intimately, but this is the kind of blackguarding. It does not know and does not want to listen, but it is shocking that it can sabotage the main and people then have dirty water and boil water notices for months in the Ardfinnan regional water scheme.

They have been on it since early September. The agency now intends to move on to the Galtee's plant, which it is going to wreck as well. Somebody has to rein it in, make it accountable and not give it copious more billions to put in infrastructure. I welcome the millions that will be provided for infrastructure because we cannot wait for Irish Water. It is unfit for purpose. It is a monstrosity that was created here by the Fine Gael Government and the sooner it is disbanded and taken down, the better. The businesses that are paying a fortune to this company for water are entitled to a service. Households are entitled to have clean drinking water that is reliable and safe, as are the hospitals, doctors' surgeries and other such places.

I am in the centre of the town. In my office we have a lovely water supply from Poulavanogue. It has been there for 200 years. They are going to disconnect that even though the supply flows down into the town and never gives trouble. That is the case at the moment, and it was also the case in the summer and last year when there was trouble all over the town. We had a water supply in the centre of the town. However, they are going to disconnect that. They tell us they cannot upgrade it to meet the standards. It is sabotage and nothing else. If they are not stopped soon, they will drive away employment and jobs and drive people to insanity.

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