Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

People say the Government did a U-turn on water charges. Yes, we did. We listened to what the people were saying and responded accordingly. The Government announcement last week brought clarity, certainty and predictability to the pricing regime that will apply to domestic water charges. With these objectives in mind, the Government has decided on measures such as the Minister has outlined, under which single-adult households will have a capped charge of €160.

This will amount to an effective charge of €60 for a person who registers with Irish Water and receives an annual water conservation grant of €100 from the Government. That is a cap of €1.25 per week. All other households will have a capped charge of €260, which will amount to an effective charge of €160 once the annual water conservation grant is taken into consideration. That is a cap of €3 per week. It is important to note this is a capped charge, not a flat rate charge. Water conservation remains central to the package of reforms, and there are real incentives for households to manage their water usage. On the Order of Business I noted the discovery that 22 households nationwide were losing up to 1 million gallons of water, or enough to supply the town of Gorey. This loss of water was discovered because the households concerned were metered. Conservation and metering is part of Government policy in this regard.
This Government will deliver safe and reliable water supplies for families and businesses alike for the coming decades. We were elected with a large mandate for reform by people who were tired of the way in which previous Governments ran the economy and, especially, our infrastructure into the ground. Instead of advocating for change, we allowed the politically easy status quoto reign, but look where it got us. For years, 20,000 people have been unable to drink the water from their own taps. An antiquated water network rots in the ground, while close to 50% of our national treated water supply is lost. There is virtually no spare capacity in Dublin, which threatens job creation. Some 16% of our water supplies are at risk, affecting more than 1 million people. One third of our secondary waste water treatment plants have inadequate effluent standards. In Dublin, more than 800 km of pipe is over 100 years old. Most major EU cities have spare capacity of 15% to 20%; Dublin has surplus capacity of between 1% and 4%. We can no longer ignore the fact that raw sewage flows into our streams, rivers and harbours from more than 42 towns nationwide. This simply cannot continue. We cannot stand over a situation in which water supplies for 945,000 people require urgent remedial action.
Irish Water did not create these problems, but I believe it will fix them, beginning with a capital investment plan worth €1.8 billion, to be funded separately from general government expenditure. We cannot build the water network Ireland needs from general taxation. It is not fair to the same working taxpayers who are asked to pay for everything. As a result, the amount of funding required to invest in clean and consistent water supplies cannot be adequately resourced from the already hard-pressed taxpayer. Nearly every other developed country in the world has water charges that can be invested in clean and safe water supplies for their citizens.
The establishment of Irish Water as a single utility company to replace the previous 34 separate water authorities will result in better water services for everyone. The ambitious metering programme is ahead of schedule and, when completed, will be a vital national asset in terms of helping water conservation and offering significant benefits to customers of Irish Water and Ireland's natural environment.
Senator Cullinane said he would be in the Chamber to listen to me, but he has gone. We all know what Sinn Féin is against, but it is about time it started to tell people what it is for. It is against everything that we know about. It is the most populist party in the country. What is its policy on water today? Under pressure from the hard left in the race to the bottom in finding the most populist, nonsensical policies that one could make up, and because the public does not believe in anything it says, it has had to revert to cheap publicity stunts in the Dáil, such as that staged by Deputy McDonald, to distract from its own lack of answers to the questions asked of it. Sinn Féin has inherited Fianna Fáil's mantle as the weather vane of Irish politics. It sees which way the wind is blowing and jumps accordingly. I will conclude on that point, although I could say much more. The Government has made an honest attempt to bring clarity, predictability and certainty to the objective of providing clean water to our citizens for many years to come. When people look back, they will recognise the necessity of this utility in providing infrastructure for water supply.