Marc MacSharry (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I had no difficulty doing it. I did it when I was on Senator Landy's side of the House and I am happy to do it here. It would be better to see more of it in politics.

As of today, 55% of people have paid their Irish Water bills, that is approximately 750,000 homes. I calculate that at 51% but I will go with the Government figures of approximately 55%. That is €146 million in revenue. Expenditure is €41 million on interest payments so far; €25 million on administrative costs; €550 million on water meters; €45 million on operating costs; and more on bonuses that we do not quite know, amounting to approximately €785 million. Not an extra cent has been spent on water infrastructure. More than 40% of people refuse to pay. We are a long way off the €5.5 billion of investment in the programme that was envisaged for Irish Water to undertake work throughout the country. We do not know how that money will come in. There is no private sector money coming into it. The organisation cannot borrow off balance sheet. We failed the EUROSTAT tests so, all told, it is a disaster. It is not of the Minister of State at the Department of Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation’s making, although he has been sent in here this evening to take the bullets. Most people in Ireland acknowledge that a disaster of this level requires action, admission of failure and for the nation to stop digging with very valuable State resources.

Far from the €5.5 billion investment envisaged for Irish Water, it is now beginning to scale back on schemes planned for many years. I can give examples from Sligo and I am sure other Senators can give examples from their regions. Will the Minister of State ask his colleagues to look into what is known as the "bundle" scheme in Sligo, for Tubbercurry, Strandhill and Grange, where sewerage upgrade plants are required? It has come to my attention this week that Irish Water, while still long-fingering the work that has to be done on upgrading those projects, is trying to scale back on their capacity, whereby they will meet current capacity with a very small amount of additional spare capacity without taking any account of the national housing crisis. In Sligo, 1,000 people are on the local authority list. That does not include any private sector, industrial or enterprise demand, which may grow, and I am sure the Minister of State and the Government would like to see that happen.

Apart from its accounting disaster that I have just outlined, Irish Water is scaling back schemes, stifling the potential for growth and recovery in communities such as Strandhill in County Sligo. A trail of Ministers over the past five years has visited that location and wallowed in the beauty of that part of the country. The Government is preventing Strandhill, Grange and Tubbercurry from performing to their potential. They need existing water and sewerage upgrades. Irish Water acknowledges that but it is long-fingering the work. In so doing, it intends to stifle the capacity to grow. When Deputies McLoughlin and Perry and Senator O’Keeffe go out to knock on doors in Tubbercurry, Grange and Strandhill and ask people for their number one vote, they should tell them not to forget that Irish Water seeks to stifle the potential to grow in this area and the ambition people might have for their communities to have new neighbours or more enterprise.

Sligo city is one of the large urban areas in the country. It is supplied by two water plants. One is known locally as Foxes Den, the other as Carns Hill. Irish Water plans to close Carns Hill down, with only a basic upgrade to the Foxes Den plant, which will ensure that Sligo city, where there are 1,000 people on the housing waiting list, will have no spare capacity for private or local authority housing. The Industrial Development Authority, IDA, is undertaking the development of a 70 acre industrial park there, which we all yearned for in the north west because we want the employment. Senator Comiskey agrees with me. The Minister of State should tell Deputies McLoughlin and Perry and Senator O’Keeffe when canvassing in Sligo to remind people that they are endorsing Irish Water to limit the capacity of the town to grow and perform to its potential. They are not allowing any spare capacity for water for housing or the new IDA enterprise park. This is being replicated in other parts of the country. Surely the Minister of State is not happy this is taking place. No doubt he has been given a brief to tell us about the great successes of Irish Water but it is an abject failure.

I will never forget the big mistakes of the previous Government because we all got it in the neck, and rightly so. The last Government was punished for its mistakes. That was just but this Government should face up to some of its own mistakes. Irish Water is one of them. I recall the voting machines debacle and cringe when I think of the waste of €50 million and the storage costs. It pales into insignificance when one considers the waste of €785 million of the people’s money so far, when we did not have it. What would local authority staff, from Waterford to Sligo, from Kerry to Louth, with excellent water services personnel who have service level agreements with Irish Water have done in all those counties, including in Dublin, with €785 million to invest in infrastructure? Irish Water does not listen to the people on the ground who have the local knowledge. Not a single cent extra has been spent on the delivery or improvement of any water infrastructure since this deformed love child of Fine Gael and the Labour Party in government was born. It is perhaps the biggest indictment of the Government. There is no need to remind me of the failings of the previous Government. It is important that they were faced up to and the people rightly adjudicated on its performance.