Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

The idea that we were wasting water was spun by the water industry, which implied that lots of little old ladies up and down the country had taps running and so on, and mentioned wastage figures of 52% to 55%. Its own members, the county engineers, were the biggest wasters of all. We know from the Minister's contribution today that the waste within houses was only 6%. Therefore, the figure of 55% was to try to make people feel guilty in order that they would volunteer for this model. Engineers were paid substantial amounts of money and it was up to them to fix it. I think it was Ben Dunne who said that if one had a shop which had 55% of its stock stolen, one would interview the people around the shop rather than going to the street and blaming the customers. We have had enough of that blame game.

I object to being called a customer. I had a relationship with Kildare County Council. I am conscripted by Irish Water and I do not want to be conscripted. The issue of overmanning has not been addressed. This is a regressive tax which is undermining the political stability in this country. The way in which Irish Water conducts itself and treats its clients, the members of a democracy, is a disaster. One of the sad consequences is that many friends of mine on the Government benches will not here after the next election. I do not know why Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party made such sacrifices of themselves with the banking business and why this Government is so keen to sacrifice itself with the water business. Irish Water should be reformed. It is a case study in how not to create a quango. It is over-manned and inefficient. Once set up, as with all the bodies we tried to reform in these two Houses of Parliament, we will never be able to reform it. I say, let us stop now, restore the responsibility for water services to the local authorities, implement the productivity elements that are to be implemented under the McLoughlin report, reduce over-manning and bring it back to local authorities. There are no economies of scale in Irish Water. In regard to water wastage, there are some small counties such as Leitrim and Waterford, where there is very little waster wastage, while there are some large counties with large amounts of water wastage. The idea that one water company in the country would achieve some economies of scale is actually not borne out by the numbers in the McLoughlin report. Irish Water is ill-conceived, and its headquarters should be shut down and its PR department closed. It should stop installing meters and we should start again.