John Whelan (Labour)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This is an important part of the consultation process, as he said. It was initiated by the Minister, Deputy Hogan, last week. I encourage everyone who has a position on the issue, such as community groups, environmental groups, corporate groups, commercial groups, farming groups and residents associations, to contribute. A great window of opportunity has been afforded by the Minister of State and his colleagues leading the project, including the Minister, Deputy Rabbitte, and the Minister, Deputy Hogan. It is vital that if anyone has a position on this he or she makes it known now or forever holds his or her tongue. We are at the juncture of making a most important strategic decision.

I agree with Senator Crown that the importance of the water issue cannot be overstated. It is second only to the burden of the economic crisis we are facing, which will pass. The water issue will not if we do not deal with it properly. It will affect industry, commerce, agriculture and domestic use. It is the lifeblood of the country and economy. Over the past ten years we constructed more than 600,000 housing units, not to speak of the advances and development in agriculture and industry. Huge industries such as Intel and pharmaceutical companies expanded. It beggars belief that we have not built a reservoir in this country in over 67 years. It is hard to fathom.

Previous Administrations were hung up on and distracted by vanity projects, such as the Bertie bowl in the middle of nowhere, so that people could get their names up in lights instead of tackling the basics when we had the resources. Simple things like fixing leaking pipes and building reservoirs, which I would have thought were a fundamental part of any strategic infrastructure in a developed country, were not done.

Some people within the political apparatus are speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue. They are baying for safe, quality water that is secure and sustainable. In Galway it cost €40 million of taxpayers money to solve the water supply issue after it was contaminated. At the same time, 440,000 households in the country still rely on septic tanks, most of which function correctly as they are supposed to but many do not. Let us be honest. Septic tanks that do not work are polluting the wells, group water schemes and ground water we all rely on for a safe and sustainable supply. I cannot understand people speaking out of both sides of their mouths on this issue. It is about time we restored honesty to the debate.

I agree with Senators Daly and Crown that we do not need a costly new quango in this country. We have enough chief executives. I would like to use this opportunity to implore the Minister of State, who is a sensible man, to use his influence within the Department before the final decision is made to ensure that we do not set up a costly new apparatus called Irish Water, bord uisce or whatever with a highly paid chief executive, entourage of staff, new office block and consultants holding their hands for the next ten years and telling them what to do but being nowhere to be found when there is a problem. I agree with the genuine concerns of my colleagues in that regard because it is not the road down which we should go.

There is a more pragmatic, sensible and common sense solution. It is about time that we stopped blaming the IMF and troika for the decisions we are making. We should not apologise for doing the right thing. It is absurd that we do not have an Irish water utility company. It should not be something that should have to be forced upon us. I hope we do not need any more payouts from the troika. We do not need any more cop-outs. It is about time we set up a publicly owned Irish water utility that is accountable to the Oireachtas, Department and Minister to do the job properly.

I agree with Senator Daly that we should learn from the disastrous experience of Northern Ireland Water. A new company was established from the ground up by people who did not know what they were doing. They did not have the expertise, tradition, knowledge or grounding in providing the service. Therefore, at the first sign of a problem it imploded.

I cannot understand what the Green Party did in government for the past five years. This Government and the Minister, Deputy Hogan, in particular, have mainstreamed the environmental issue and embedded it in policy. They have done more in the past five months for the environment than the Green Party did in government in five years. It talked a good game on climate change but did nothing about septic tanks, water security and conservation. It was more obsessed with the directly elected mayor of Dublin. Who cares about that?

I am interested in making sure that the people in the country have safe, clean drinking water and are not worried about it being contaminated. That is what is important. It brings me to my core proposal for the Minister of State. We already have semi-State companies in place with the expertise, skill sets, resources, chief executives and office blocks ready to go. We do not have to reinvent the wheel in establishing an Irish water utility. Bord na Móna is the perfect fit for this task. Others believe the NRA would have a role to play. I have no problem with that. Those companies are already in place, have rolled out huge infrastructural projects across the country and have dealt with local communities and authorities in a fair fashion. This seems to be the kind of task we are talking about in terms of setting up Irish water.

Bord na Móna is already in place and is ready to go. The Government cannot afford to take a punt and see if the new Irish water company will work or how it pans out. We do not have the time for that and cannot afford the risks involved with that kind of approach. Bord na Móna has the proven capability over 75 years of dealing and working with local communities and local authorities across the country. It has a massive customer base. I have had my eyes opened and those of others should be as well. It is a long time since Bord na Móna only dealt in peat. It has moved, progressed and diversified. One division alone, AES, which is in the recycling and waste disposal business, dispatches 120,000 bills across the country every month and deals with thousands of customers in regard to flood management. It is already in the water business and has one of the most well-established laboratories in Europe dealing with the question of water testing and water treatment, and already does such work for Intel, Wyeth and Pfizer. It conducts over 67,000 water tests per year at present. In addition, it has access to the capital markets in Europe and the US so it is in a position to hit the ground running without placing any further financial burden on the Exchequer or the Government at a time when resources are very limited.

There is a lot of misinformation and mischief with regard to this issue, and the Minister has touched on this point. In the past decade, Dublin City Council and other local authorities have been examining alternative sources of water. Desalination is one of the areas that has been explored and most likely ruled out because it is not feasible and costs ten times more than other options. I call on those with good intentions who are genuinely concerned about the environmental and ecological issues surrounding abstraction of water from the Shannon to think again. The Shannon is in flood for 80% of the year. The proposal from Dublin City Council and Bord na Móna to build a new reservoir at Garryhinch will supply water into the Leinster region for the next 50 years and will only abstract water to the tune of some 2% to 4% on the flood, which is sustainable. People should stop scaremongering on this matter.

I urge my colleagues to be fair-minded about this. We do not have to go around the houses or to reinvent the wheel. We already have the expertise and skillset in place within the semi-State sector. That is the model the Government should embrace and I urge it to do so.