Jim Walsh (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Go raibh maith agat. Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire Stáit go dtí an Teach seo. Bhí sé mar Bhall den Teach seo uair amháin. Ag an am sin, ba mhinic go ndéanfaimid díospóireacht le chéile. Nuair a bhí mé ag caint leis an Seanadóir Ó Domhnaill, dúirt mé go mbeadh sé níos oiriúnaí ainm an Bhille a leasú go dtí "An Bille um Uisce Beatha 2013". I say that because whiskey is obviously known as "uisce beatha" which means the water of life. I have always felt that water is an invaluable and essential resource and it is for that reason I remember the following. In 1983 Dick Spring was the leader of the Labour Party and he introduced water charges. Even though my party held the majority on my local town council we decided to implement the water charges which cost £40 in Irish pounds a year. The decision was not terribly popular but my local council felt that it was the right thing to do. Interestingly, a subsequent Labour Minister removed the water charges in a state of panic when Joe Higgins threatened to take the seat from Joan Burton. Subsequently she lost her seat and water charges were removed.

I am not in favour of everything that is proposed in the Bill. The Minister of State laid emphasis on the Commission for Energy Regulation but I shall return to the matter later and shall deal with the Bord Gáis aspect at the same time.

The Bill will set up an expensive quango. As we have seen with a range of semi-State companies and State services, they are laden with quite a high level of inefficiency, cost ineffectiveness, very high salaries and an excessive amount of staff. That is a feature of public services everywhere and is definitely a feature in Ireland. Bord Gáis is a reasonably good example because it has many examples of same. The same applies to the ESB, as members will know, and other organisations. That worries me. The Minister wants to introduce the legislation at a time when people are hard pressed. This Government, in particular, has ladened them down with a significant array of costs. The new charge is on top of the local property tax and great hikes in energy prices.

I shall turn now to the Commission for Energy Regulation. I am not a fan of regulation in this country because it has failed us badly. When I was a member of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Communications, Energy and National Resources I initiated a request where we sought a list of the salaries paid to the top executives in all of the semi-State companies that reported to us, including the regulatory authorities that reported to the committee. The information was provided.

For its own reasons, the committee decided it would be done without publicity, so we dealt with it in committee which I did not think was the best way to deal with it. This was well in advance of a lot of what emerged subsequently, where many of the organisations were brought into disrepute because of the levels of pay and so on. I hope it highlighted for my colleagues on the committee that transparency is an essential part of dealing with this issue and these types of issues.

I have been very underwhelmed by the approach of the Commission for Energy Regulation. The reason for the escalating price of energy over the years would have been perceived by some - I am not sure it is correct - that because many of these people came from some of these organisations or had backgrounds in them or came from the Department which dealt with these organisations, the interest of the consumer was definitely not prioritised.

I refer to the provision of this essential resource without the necessary breaks and balances we have within the local government system. If one were to roll out water charges as in the past, the elected members would play a significant role in ensuring the levy of the charges was reasonable and would have an obligation, which was often discharged, to tackle the cost inefficiencies within the system. This worries me and I would not have any confidence in the Commission for Energy Regulation doing that. I have never seen an example, although perhaps the Minister of State can give me one, where it was shown that the interest of the consumer was prioritised over the interest of the supplier. I have never seen an example of that and I do not think it will happen in this case.

I am concerned because there has been a dearth of investment within the service, which I accept. I presume this will be tackled and that is part of the reason we will borrow. I can see in that scenario that the Commission for Energy Regulation will probably argue it needs to build up reserves to be able to take on these significant investments. I can see the interests of the consumer being sidelined.

Bord Gáis was mentioned and I know people who worked in it. It has a very good reputation but when one scratches underneath the surface, it certainly does not come out smelling of roses as a tightly disciplined cost-effective corporate entity.

We should have certain criteria to underpin what we are doing. One should be that it is cost efficient. We are stripping away the functions from democratically elected members of local authorities and providing this quango, which I understand will have up to 500 employees with another 400 in call centres. Abtran will be involved. We have seen examples of large consultancy firms being involved.

I cannot understand why the company will not be open to freedom of information from day one because many of these consultancy costs need to be put under the microscope. If we are learning anything from what is coming out of the HSE and other public bodies, surely it must be that we need to get a grip on these before they become issues and problems. Due to the failure of our State apparatus to control these overhead costs and excessive salaries, what we will end up with in a few years is a huge pressure building up from other workers in these organisations, who do not occupy these privileged positions, for huge increases. As a State, we have been moving back in a better direction of being competitive, but we are still far short of meeting the competitive benchmarks we need to meet, which are western European countries. Salaries across these companies, the public service and these Houses should all be benchmarked with what is happening in western Europe - in Germany, the Benelux countries, France, Spain, Britain and Scandinavia. If we do not want to be back into a situation where we are struggling economically, we must pitch our tent in that particular arena.

Hard-pressed consumers are not just faced with what I said about the property tax but with huge increases in health insurance, which we raised in this House, specifically because of a change in Government policy. I understand between €100 and €400 per year will be added and nobody will ensure it is towards the lower end rather than the higher end. There will not even be freedom of information to expose it.

I refer to the audit of this network and tackling the waste within the system. And a lot of water is wasted. I do not know if any consideration has been given to a more efficient structure. I know it will probably involve a lot of capital costs but we treat water, which is expensive to process, and flush it down the toilet or use it for washing rather than human consumption. I do not know if there is scope in that area. I would like to see some vision emerge and some brakes put on this.

I have set out the position. Our party is opposing the Bill for some of the reasons I mentioned. We are not alone in opposing this Bill. The Labour Party's election manifesto stated it did not favour water charges. On 18 February 2011, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Howlin, said the Labour Party did not favour water charges. On 28 June 2010, the leader of Labour Party, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Deputy Gilmore, stated in theIrish Examiner, with which I am sure Senator Clune is familiar, that he was against water charges, that water was a necessity, that he always believed essential services like water should be delivered as a public service, that a flat household charge would be unfair as it would not discriminate between houses with five bathrooms or no bathroom, and that metering was unworkable. That comment was made by the Tánaiste three years ago. I look forward to hearing the answers from the Minister of State and from those in the Labour Party.