Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----from north Tipperary. The Members have a Tipperary-born Minister before them for his sins. I had no control over that and I cannot get any votes down there. There is a real tangible connection with what is happening in Irish Water directly back down through local government. If the chief executive of Irish Water has worked body and soul in local government, his appointment is a perfect choice and will provide for an excellent transition.

The issue of the local councillor's access of Irish Water was raised. The local councillor currently has access to the local engineer and he or she will continue to have such access. There is no reason local authority members should be worried about this. I was a member of a local authority for 27 years and any time a serious water issue arose in a community area I was able to telephone the engineer to have the issue addressed. Local councillors are agents of their community and they will not be excluded from contact, accessibility or securing information. Irish Water needs local government elected members to work with it and advise them of issues, and that will happen. The next Bill on this area that will be introduced before the summer recess will outline the connectivity and accountability of Irish Water to local councillors. The water infrastructure will be based on the water basin districts. There is no reason regional assemblies should not deal with many of these issues.

Another important issue for local councillors is the drawing up of development plans and decisions on what will happen in an electoral area, of which water supply and planning will form a critical part. We have to set up provision for tangible practical relationships between the planning authority and Irish Water, which will be the case, and that will come under a second Bill on this area that will come before the House. Nobody is being disenfranchised. There will be better water infrastructure and a one-stop-shop nationally for all of that but locally councillors will have the ability to communicate, get the facts and obtain results, as will Maggie Murphy, James Maguire or whoever lives next door to them.

One of the good aspects of Bord Gáis is that its customers service is second to none. In this body we will create between 350 and 400 jobs in a national customer service location. If a person has a problem, he or she can telephone the customer service section of the body and in that way there will be accountability. I have seen how an equivalent service operates in the United Kingdom and perhaps the Oireachtas committee or Members of the Seanad might go and examine such a service which involves a call centre. One can see when the calls are made the way they are logged in real time, the way they are followed up, the action to be taken on them, whether it is coded red, yellow or green, they are followed through and at the end of every day they are examined and account is taken of what happened, what is being done and the reason an issue has not been resolved. There will be a hands-on approach to issues and accountability back to the consumer.

I dealt with the issue raised by Senator Wilson last week but I wish to respond to what he said. If one sets up a new entity, it will not materialise out of the air - there is no magic wand. The best thing to do is to ensure that it is a publicly-owned entity. It must be a public utility. It cannot be a private one and on that we all agree. What better than to offer all the public utilities the job of taking on the running of Uisce Éireann. There were three major players who could have done it - the ESB, Bord Gáis and Bord na Móna. There was no tender as such, no money or benefit in kind given to Bord Gáis for doing this. Obviously, its costs will have to be covered but there is no extra money sitting on its table for doing this. It was not about competition but about the ability of an organisation such as Bord na Móna, Bord Gáis or whichever entity to submit an application on how it would run the organisation, the issues it could deal with, its track record, how efficient it is and how it could do this. I want to stress that was the process and I hope I have got across those points to Members.

We are very concerned to ensure that the next Bill will clarify all those issues. I will be come to the House before the summer recess and hopefully I will answer all the Members' questions to their satisfaction as best I can to make sure that the structures are in place. This will not be a HSE on wheels. This will be Uisce Éireann which will be accountable and transparent and provide for a wonderful natural resource which we have to protect and enhance. I think that we are doing it the right way. I understand the Members' concerns and I hope to be able to address them in the next Bill.