Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

On the general area of service level agreements, one of our significant concerns in some of the more westerly counties such as Mayo, Galway and Roscommon is the priority to be given to local developments. One of the local authorities has made an application to the Department on the issue of foreign direct investment. At the moment, some of those western and more rural county councils can ensure that the water services infrastructure is available to encourage companies interested in locating in their region. These county councils are very concerned that they will be unable to do so when Uisce Éireann is established which may result in an IDA-type mentality where cities such as Galway, Cork and Dublin are given priority for foreign direct investment. The county councils are concerned they will no longer have that power because they will not have control over water services. This is a very significant concern. I ask the Minister of State to comment.

This country does not have a great track record with regard to the provision of other services in rural areas. Under Telecom Éireann, as bad as it was, it was difficult enough to get work done in a rural area but when it came to Eircom, it was even more difficult. There is a concern that the EPA findings which we discussed still show that a significant level of funding is required for remedial actions. For example, the EPA remedial action list shows 147 supplies and it indicates that remedial works in a further 70 supplies need to be completed by the end of 2013. There have been issues around THM, cryptosporidium and E. coli. My issue about the service level agreements is that centralised decision-making will be based in Dublin in Uisce Éireann, who will decide which repairs and services are to be prioritised and how the diminishing capital will be divvied out.

The Minister of State has not explained the magical arithmetic of where the money for the capital investment will come from. He referred to €1.2 billion and the fact that only €200,000 is available from the commercial rates and that the shortfall will have to be funded from the investment fund from abroad. How much will be capital investment? Who will be in charge of deciding in counties Galway, Mayo, Roscommon or Leitrim which schemes are to be prioritised? More pertinently, which counties will be prioritised? In other spheres of Irish society, the major urban centres and the eastern counties tend to get the bulk of the funding for infrastructural projects such as roads and rail networks. This has been our experience, unfortunately, on the western seaboard and in western counties and it is probably also the case in the Border counties. I am very concerned and many county councillors have similar concerns that once Uisce Éireann is established and it is in charge of who gets the money, we will see another version of this prioritising policy.