Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

-----but I can advise the Minister of State that Donegal County Council has made applications for funding to the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, some of the approvals have been issued, but the vast majority of approvals to go to tender has not been issued despite a number of announcements. Often, I blame the local authority as much as anybody else. However, in a number of schemes that are awaiting construction, it is the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, that is dragging its heels and changing the goalposts in relation to those schemes.

That is really irrelevant because the picture which the Minister of State depicted during the course of his contribution was that Irish Water is a white knight sailing in to improve the infrastructure. As for who will play for it, the consumer will. The transfer of assets, from the balance sheet of the State to Irish Water, will occur. The ability to raise €2 billion on the financial markets will occur. The €500 million or €600 million, about which the Minister of State has failed to answer thus far, is being removed from the Local Government Fund, where councillors have control of it and decide how it is spent, and will be transferred across to Irish Water. The charge that €500 million of that money would go to Irish Water was not denied by the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, when he was questioned last week at the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht meeting when he confirmed that the money was being transferred across. When questioned, Deputy Hogan, did not dispel the fact.