Paschal Mooney (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I support this motion primarily because of the Government's history of ineptitude in setting up Irish Water, the concept of water charges and how it has gone about conservation. Many good points could have been sold to an increasingly sceptical public, but that opportunity has been lost over the past 12 months because of the sheer incompetence of this Government in how it addressed this issue. It is not as if it is a new issue; it has been around for a long time. The concept of water charges was not discussed only under the previous Fianna Fáil Administration; it goes back even further to the rainbow coalition. One could be amazed by the spin the Government has put on the argument, as its members are arguing about what Fianna Fáil might or might not have done. There is inaccuracy in many of the statements coming from the Government, and even today people have argued there was a lack of infrastructure.

It was somewhat instructive to hear Senator Comiskey talking about water quality in Sligo and Leitrim. Perhaps he was going in a different direction, but I suggest that the main reason for this water quality is the very specific and significant investment by Fianna Fáil Administrations in upgrading water services, particularly in much of rural Ireland.

There is an argument and a spin, which came up again today as well as in the debate before Christmas, that somehow this Government has been like a knight in shining armour which suddenly arrived on the landscape and said that those dastardly people in Fianna Fáil did nothing about water or water infrastructure in all the time they were in government and that it will fix the problem.