Seanad debates

Tuesday, 25 November 2014

Water Sector Reforms: Statements

 

4:35 pm

Photo of Caít KeaneCaít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State to the Seanad to discuss this important topic and how we will ensure that we have a safe, clean and adequate supply of water to serve the people and businesses of this country, and our country. Uisce Éireann was established to bring together 34 local authorities into one national service provider. If they had been given money by Government to correct the leakage and everything else in the boom times when there was plenty of money sloshing around, the Kathleen McTiernans of this country would have done a much better job. The money was not given at that stage.

Mistakes were made in the setting up of Irish Water. I will be the first to admit that and it has been admitted. The Government has gone about addressing the problem. It has listened to the people. It has made massive changes, which the Minister of State has outlined. I will not go into it again, but the people are there for them to see. There is also a focus on the customer and the Government has committed to establishing a public forum on a statutory basis to ensure that everyone has an input into making sure that procedures are put in place to ensure people are served with good, clean water and an affordable system. Fear of the unknown led to many of the problems we had and the affordability issue. As the Minister of State has said, he has listened.

When the EU member states adopted the water framework directive in 2000, Ireland secured an exemption or carve-out upon which successive Governments have relied to avoid charging. In 2009, however, the EU directive was transposed into Irish law by statutory instrument, SI 772 of 2009, which regulations seek to ensure that water pricing policies and practices are in place. We are in the EU and, unlike Deputy Adams, we cannot tell the EU to bugger off. We have seen what happened with the water pollution fines. In December 2012, the European Court of Justice hit Ireland with a €2 million up-front fine, followed by daily fines, for failing to comply with a 2009 ruling. The Court also fined Ireland €1.5 million. Since the Government has come to power, the Water Services Acts of 2012 and 2013 have saved Ireland from continuing to incur EU fines of €12,000 per day for failure to comply with environmental impact regulations as a result of discharge of water.

Most people understand that we have a broken water system, and we must ensure that it becomes clean and sustainable. There is also a need to create jobs. The best way to achieve this is by setting up Uisce Éireann, a semi-state company independent from Government, which - as the last speaker failed to understand - can borrow on the open markets at a rate of €1 billion per year. This will save the Government some expenditure for 2015 and 2016. If we did not have that, it would add 0.3% to the Government deficit - €850 million in plain terms - in 2015. If we do not set up Uisce Éireann, we must either pay a lot more in our income tax or continue with a broken system that some people continue to insist was okay. Their attitude was "I'm all right, Jack."

As the Taoiseach has stated, suspending Irish Water would mean that the system would have to be funded from the public purse. That could be done if we added at least 4% to the top rate of tax or reversed all the tax cuts and social welfare improvements that we saw in the recent budget. Those who say "Can't pay, won't pay," at the same time call for more money for homelessness, and if everybody paid a little there would be a lot more money for homelessness, social welfare and education. This is not scaremongering; it is a fact. I ask those people who do not want to widen the funding base in this way to spell out where they would get the €850 million, because under EU statutes funds cannot be used directly for capital purposes unless a reasonable charge is introduced.

The Opposition does not like to hear this, but we are the only OECD country without domestic water charges. We have 20,000 people on boil-water notices and 42 urban areas with no treatment or preliminary treatment only, and we have raw sewage spewing into the sea in eight towns and villages. How can anybody stand over that and say it was all right to continue down the road we were on? It was not all right to continue down that road. We could not continue under-investing like that, and we had no choice but to correct it. Senator MacSharry, the previous speaker, has to acknowledge that we could not continue in that way. By establishing Irish Water as a subsidiary of Bord Gáis Éireann, savings of about €90 million were achieved. To put the €150 million into context, Irish Water will save €170 million on upgrading the Ringsend waste water treatment plant. In this project alone, it will save the taxpayer what it cost to establish Irish Water. I will repeat that. Irish Water will save €170 million on the upgrading of the Ringsend water treatment plant compared to what was proposed by the local authority. This single project will save the taxpayer what it cost to establish Irish Water. Fair is fair. I would be the first to condemn the failings in communication and the provision of incorrect information, and the Government along with it, but the Minister has already apologised for that. We have to acknowledge the good things they do as well, when they get it right, to ensure that people have confidence in the utility going forward. There are bad things, but there are also good things.

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