Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I suggest that legislation approved by the Houses of the Oireachtas is the appropriate way to address this matter. Senators must also take into consideration that during all of this I have borne in mind the advice we received from the Attorney General. I also had to take into consideration all of the issues relating to unintended consequences of putting such a provision into the Constitution. The Constitution is our document and bedrock and we must think very carefully before we make amendments to it. In this regard, I strongly believe the provisions contained in section 2 for a plebiscite are the appropriate way of ensuring that the views of the people are sought.

I also tabled an amendment to section 8, which deals with customer dispute resolution. This amendment was to clarify that the right of the customer to bring a dispute to the Commission for Energy Regulation could not be frustrated by any delay in Irish Water resolving its own dispute resolution. Section 32 of the Water Services (No. 2) Act 2013 provides that Irish Water is obliged to deal with any customer disputes in accordance with a code of practice to be approved by the Commission for Energy Regulation. However, I was happy to bring forward the amendment to reflect the limited but fair concerns of Deputies and bring full clarity on the application of section 8.

The Government’s objective is to make the new domestic water charges system simpler and fairer, providing more clarity to households and ensuring water charges are affordable for customers of Irish Water. The Government also wants to strengthen the legislative framework within which Irish Water will operate and to give people certainty that Irish Water will remain in public ownership. The Bill includes measures to address all of these objectives.

As the domestic meter programme has progressed and public discourse on the water reform progress has intensified, it has become apparent that the charging regime was not publically accepted. This created uncertainty and other concerns for customers regarding their bills in 2015 and beyond. I must accept this. As a result, the Government took time to reflect on the demanding reform programme being implemented to a challenging timescale. As I have often said in this regard, the scale of the project was underestimated and its timescale was certainly underestimated. Collectively we have listened to the people’s concerns and we have responded.

The changes to the charging system as a result of the Bill will ensure the system is defined by four key attributes. There are certainty, as every household will know what its capped bills will be until the end of 2018; simplicity, as there will be only two charging structures and a water conservation grant; affordability, as the absolute maximum net cost is now just over €3 per week, and for single households it will be approximately €1.15 per week, which is much less than 1% of most people’s incomes or benefits and puts our water bills among the lowest in Europe; and conservation, as with a meter, households will have the opportunity to pay less than the capped bill and can use the water conservation grant to make changes to avail of lower charges.

I accept many people are in financial difficulty and given my other areas of responsibility as a Minister, I probably know this more than most.

I will insist that Irish Water distinguishes between those who want to pay but cannot and those who simply refuse to pay. Those who want to pay but are in financial difficulty will be able to avail of easy-pay options and instalment plans, just as with any other utility. I was determined to ensure that was the case. Those who do not register and do not pay will not be able to avail of the water conservation grant and will be liable for a late payment fee.
The Bill also addresses a number of other concerns expressed by the public. It provides a robust additional safeguard against the danger of privatisation, specifically, the will of the people. In the unlikely event that any future Government should seek to sell Irish Water, we are ensuring that the public must be consulted in a plebiscite and that a majority of those who vote must support the proposal. It provides for changes to strengthen Irish Water’s governance, part of a wider reorganisation of the corporate governance structures of Ervia and of Irish Water. The Government is putting in place a unitary board at Ervia, which will also be responsible for Irish Water and the gas networks subsidiary. The new board will provide for stronger governance and improved setting of strategic objectives for each of the component companies. Advertisements in relation to this are already in place on the new public appointments website, stateboards.ie, and I am sure many colleagues here have seen them.
The proposed public water forum will ensure that the voice of Irish Water’s customers is listened to, and is influential in the strategic direction of this utility. That is important. The proposed customer dispute resolution service, to be provided by the Commission for Energy Regulation, will have a legal basis, and will provide customers with the same access to resolution of unresolved complaints as energy customers currently have. These new structures will help Irish Water identify where its customer service needs improvement.
Many people, especially in this House, have expressed concern about Irish Water obtaining PPS numbers for the purposes of registration. This was a necessary underpinning of the former charging regime, which was based mainly on allowances rather than capped charges, but I have had to reflect on that. I reflected in great detail, and the Government has decided that the new arrangements should be based on self-declaration and appropriate audit. Therefore, PPS numbers will not be required for registration.
The Government package announced last month also referred to a suite of measures which would apply if households did not pay. These will be brought forward in separate legislation in the new year, and will be the subject of extensive stakeholder engagement and pre-legislative scrutiny.
The changes provided for in this Bill do not change the fundamentals of the Government’s water sector reform programme. Ireland’s public water system was and remains in need of changes to the way it operates, and the level of funding it receives. It needs a complete overhaul. The previous system of providing water services through local authorities was not working properly, despite the best efforts of the dedicated and experienced staff involved, and I must acknowledge these fantastic people, who have been doing fantastic work over many generations, sometimes in very difficult circumstances. It is through no fault of theirs that we must go down this route. We have to face the fact that local authorities were restricted in their ability to borrow, so they could not invest adequately in the system. The time taken to make decisions to invest was often slow and bureaucratic and at times it was inefficient. Planning for new water services largely, though not exclusively, stopped at the county boundary, so there was limited opportunity to achieve economies of scale on a regional or national basis.
We see the results of this fundamentally flawed approach in almost every city, town and county. There are major issues around the quality of water supply and the capacity of the existing system to supply treated water in the quantities needed by households, businesses and industry. For example, more than 22,000 people are on boil water notices and almost a million more depend on drinking water supplies that are at risk of falling below the required standards. Almost half the water treated – at significant cost – runs off in leaks and is unaccounted for. In addition - I use this only by way of example - 22 households are leaking a combined total of over one million litres a day into their driveways. That is enough to serve the needs in one day in the town of Gorey, with which some in this House would be very familiar. In Dublin, more than 800 km of pipe is over 100 years old and I cannot stand over that. There is insufficient supply for the greater Dublin area. Most major European cities have a spare capacity of 15% to 20%. Dublin has a surplus capacity of only 1% to 4%. We all know of the situation a few years ago, whereby restaurants in this city had restricted water supply during some very busy periods. We all know what happened with the fantastic event, the Web Summit, a few years ago, where so many people visited this city and were left in a situation where water supplies were restricted in hotels while they were visiting.