Hildegarde Naughton (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I have spoken before about the lack of clarity and the incompetence surrounding the establishment of Irish Water. No observer could be anything but disappointed with how it was handled. I will not rehash all of those issues today; they are as obvious as they were avoidable. I am concerned, however, about the damage they have done to our national confidence and the body politic generally.

My intention is to address the cynicism of those now opposing the establishment of Irish Water. I refer in particular to the political opportunism of Fianna Fáil in opposing the establishment of a body of which it was initially in favour. I do so in the hope that Members of that party might leave politics aside for one moment and take the correct course. The Government rightly moved in recent weeks to address the concerns of people in regard to the establishment of Irish Water. Although the sums now involved are not to be sniffed at, they are reasonable and fixed. The issue of privatisation has been addressed, as has the requirement to provide PPS numbers and other issues that caused people concern.

I can perfectly understand that people might be angry at the Government about this issue. However, to use a rather hackneyed phrase, anger is not a policy and the bottom line is that we urgently need a water utility. There are still areas in this country with water unfit for use. There are sizeable towns with no water provision at all. That is unacceptable. If we are serious about attracting future investment by multinationals, developing key sectors such as tourism, which has grown by 9% this year, and promoting Ireland as a food island, we must tackle the environmental scandal of raw sewage seeping into lakes, rivers and seas and having a detrimental impact on provincial towns and cities.

Until such time as Irish Water is established, there will be no proper investment in our water infrastructure. Since the foundation of the State, local authorities have had responsibility for the provision of water services and that was paid for through direct taxation. It led to situations such as that in Galway, for instance, where 50% of the water supply is leaking away before it reaches the tap. The most desperate and utterly untrue pseudo-reason for opposing the establishment of this utility is that it involves double taxation. That is utterly untrue. The new utility will not only do as the local authorities did before, that is, treat and get water to householders' taps, it will also, for the first time, allow for serious multi-billion euro investment in our water infrastructure. The previous regime allowed for no investment worth talking about. Local authorities had very limited ability to borrow and, if they did, such borrowing went onto the national balance sheet.