Aideen Hayden (Labour) | Oireachtas source

On the issue of lead pipes, which came to public attention a short while ago, there is an implication in some of the media reports that Irish Water discovered the problem and wrote to 28,000 households to advise that they had lead pipes that are a health hazard. I find it somewhat disturbing. It is my understanding that lead piping was used to supply households up to the 1970s and even up to the 1980s. This should be the subject of an inquiry, perhaps by the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht. The damage done by lead in the water system has been known for decades. It is linked to development issues in children and is also linked to kidney problems, cancer and even to dementia.

I wonder about the role of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government back in the 1970s and 1980s, and indeed the 1990s and 2000s, when it must have been known that local authorities were installing lead piping in the country even though it was known to be a health hazard.

There is an issue of accountability of local authorities and an issue of the accountability of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Why should it be down to householders to put their hands deep into their pockets to pay for this? That local authorities might be held accountable for doing something that was damaging to public health when they knew better is worthy of investigation.

The ESRI has warned the Government against putting €1.5 billion of a budget boost back into the economy. The good news is that it is lauding the economy's performance and noted that we would have a growth rate of 4% next year and 3.5% the following year, accompanied by significant drops in unemployment - down to 8.3% by 2016. All of this proves that the Government has succeeded significantly in turning the economy around.

I do not accept its advice to Government that we should put our hands in our pockets and let the economy do its job. I do not think the ESRI is aware that this Government and the previous one were forced to take significant amounts of money out of public services that impacted on some of the most vulnerable people in Irish society despite our best efforts to try to preserve basic rates of social welfare. In particular we owe it to people who suffer from disability, for example, who need resources put back into the health budget as my colleague on the other side of the House has said. We also need to support those who need housing, who need education and people with young families who, we know, have suffered from what has happened to this country over many years.

I agree that we should not under any circumstances lead the country into another bubble, but we must restore public services and we can do so without fuelling private debt and without bringing the country into a situation of crisis.