Seanad debates
Thursday, 19 April 2012
Sale of State Assets: Statements, Questions and Answers
Let me touch upon Irish Water. Its establishment is a step in the right direction. The proliferation of local authority bodies and companies involved with water is a result of our legacy of conducting business. We have considerable expertise in some areas and a lack of it in others. We should not require a local authority to purchase expertise from environmental engineers, etc., when the expertise is available in other local authorities, including those in Dublin, Cork and Limerick. I will not mention the one in Galway because of its history. The expertise exists in a certain area. If Wexford County Council wanted to advance a project, it would have to hire staff from an environmental company and pay the relevant fees, yet there are local authority staff in the network in Dublin who might have expertise to pass on. The benefit of Irish Water is that we will no longer be paying money unnecessarily and we will be able to move towards a top-class, world-class water service, which we do not have at present.
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