Fidelma Healy Eames (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 19:

In page 7, between lines 29 and 30, to insert the following:“(2) Within 6 months the Minister shall prepare and publish a Report to both Houses of the Oireachtas outlining how the conservation grant scheme is being implemented and detailing how the scheme is contributing towards bringing the network up to the standard to meet metric tests established by the Commission for Energy Regulation.”

In this amendment I am asking the Minister to prepare and publish a report to both Houses within six months outlining how the conservation grant scheme is being implemented and detailing in particular how the scheme is contributing towards bringing the network up to the standard to meet metric tests established by the Commission for Energy Regulation.
The conservation grant is generous. It is €100 per house and we have 1.65 million houses, so that amounts to €165 million paid out of the Exchequer, out of general taxation, which means money is going to be taken from the budget for hospitals, schools, roads, etc. I have difficulty, as I said earlier, that it is not coming out of Irish Water. Here we have the Government shoring up Irish Water again. It has already got €490 million of a subvention and now it is shoring up Irish Water with the water conservation grant, which is really an inducement to sign up. It is a sop to the electorate. What proofs will there be that conservation is happening? How will conservation be verified? Let us take my own case. I pay €260 and by the end of year I will claim back €100. How will the Government assess that I am conserving water? Why is this called a water conservation grant when we do not see any means by which it is going to be measured? Given that the water conservation grant is paid by the Exchequer, who is actually responsible for evaluating the effectiveness of this measure? Is it the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government, the Department of Social Protection, or Irish Water? If this is not a water conservation grant we should not call it that. Let us call it a water rebate levy to thank people for signing up.