Caít Keane (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 2:

“To delete all words after ‘That Seanad Éireann:’ and substitute the following:

supports:

·the ongoing work by Irish Water in upgrading Ireland’s public water and wastewater systems and delivering new, national approaches to the delivery of water infrastructure and services;

·the Government’s funding model for water services, including domestic water charges, which facilitates increased investment in badly-needed water and wastewater infrastructure to deal with the legacies of past under-investment;

notes:

·that Irish Water has significantly increased core infrastructural investment since it became the national water services authority, from the estimated €300 million invested by local authorities in 2013 to an estimated €411 million by Irish Water in 2015 including the first fix programme – representing a 37 per cent increase in two years – to an expected €533 million this year;

·that this increased investment contributed to the elimination in 2015 of boil water notices affecting 17,300 people in Roscommon and the reduction in the population using drinking water supplies in need of remedial action;

·that Irish Water’s installation of approximately 802,000 domestic meters has enabled it to introduce a ‘First Fix’ scheme to assist householders in repairing leaks;

·that Irish Water has notified approximately 27,000 householders so far of possible lead piping in their homes, also identified through the domestic metering programme;

·that Irish Water has introduced new approaches to asset management and infrastructural delivery and is implementing a ‘2014-2017 Transformation Plan’ with local authorities, aimed at standardising and modernising operations;

·that well over 200,000 jobs in Ireland are dependent on water-intensive processes including the agri-food, pharma-chem, ICT and tourism sectors, and therefore need a secure water supply;

and welcomes:

·the reduction in the number of people using drinking water supplies on the EPA’s ‘Remedial Action List’, from 940,000 people in January 2015 to 770,000 people today;

·the expected completion by Irish Water of twenty-six new wastewater treatment plants and nine new water treatment plants, along with the upgrading of fifty-three wastewater treatment plants and nineteen wastewater treatment plants between 2014 and 2016;

·the 28 million litres of water per day already being saved by Irish Water as a result of the ‘First Fix’ scheme, and the further savings from the replacement of 400 kilometres of pipework over the past two years;

the work done by Irish Water and local authorities over the last two years to increase the spare water supply capacity in the Greater Dublin Area from 1 – 2 per cent to approximately 10 per cent;

·the reduction in operational and capital costs already achieved by Irish Water, including the estimated €240 million to be saved through new asset management approaches to five major projects alone;

·Irish Water’s 2014-2021 Business Plan, which includes: a capital investment programme of €5.5 billion to 2021, targets in operational and capital savings, the aim to eliminate all current boil water notices, the aim to end the discharge of untreated wastewater at 44 locations and a target to significantly reduce leakage.’.”

Being selective with facts is one thing, but I want it to put some figures on the record. I will start at the end of the Senator's comments when he said that the figures for setting up Irish Water were €750 million. The establishment costs for Irish Water were reviewed by the Commission for Energy Regulation which approved an amount of €172.8 million to be capitalised in the opening regulated asset base of the utility and that is a fact. I hope the Senator is writing down the figures because they should be read into the record. The energy regulator is an independent organisation which does not play politics with a serious issue. I was surprised to see this issue, proposing to get rid of a charge, on the agenda without actually proposing where the money would come from or what services would be cut. When people serve on councils they are normally told that if they propose to cut a budget, the money must be found elsewhere. However, it appears this money is like manna from heaven and it is going to fall out of the sky like water. While we have had plenty of that recently none of it is treated and it is a very expensive job to treat it.

Irish Water and the Government have made more progress in two years than was made in the previous ten and the facts speak for themselves; Irish Water invested €343 million in 2014 and €411 million in 2015, a total of €754 million to date. Those figures are a couple of months old as we had debated this to death before. An expected €533 million will be invested in 2016. Last year's €411 million represents a 37% increase in just two years. They are the facts. Figures can be read out for one area or one county, particularly Sligo - as referenced by Senator MacSharry. I will refer to Clifden in County Galway, a region in the west of Ireland with which I am very familiar. It has a new sewage treatment plant.The people there are delighted. Prioritisation is required in the context of a national organisation. Piecemeal patching of the system in various counties is no good. By the end of this year, Irish Water is expected to have completed 35 treatment plants and 26 waste water treatment plants and to have upgraded 72 plants. There is no doubt that the record of the local authorities in the past in this regard is not comparable. I commend the local authority workers on the ground who had to deal with these issues before the establishment of Irish Water.

Before the establishment of Irish Water, approximately 944,000 people were dependent on drinking water supplies which required remedial action, while almost 20,000 people were on boil water notices. A full 49% of all treated water was lost through leakage but that has now been corrected by Irish Water. My own area of south County Dublin had the best record in this area, with a loss of only 16% of treated water through leakages. I will not mention the county with the worst record, except to say that it is in the midlands. Irish Water is now correcting that situation. A total of 44 urban areas throughout Ireland saw untreated sewerage going into rivers and the sea, posing a major risk to human health. This is now being taken in hand in a co-ordinated way at national level.

People naturally care about their water, given that it is one of the elements essential to our survival. A European-wide poll asked participants to name the five biggest environmental issues of most concern to them and water pollution topped the list. The pollution of our waterways is now being corrected. All around the country raw sewerage was being released into our waterways but nothing was done about this by the local authorities. In 2000, the Water Framework Directive forced member states to establish a national system of water treatment but this was totally ignored in the past. The current Government rightly saw this inaction as unacceptable and decided that the establishment of a single national body was the best option in terms of tackling this problem. Indeed, Fianna Fáil agreed that a single national body was the way to go and also agreed with the troika that charging for water was a good idea. The proposed charges were a good deal higher than those introduced by this Government.