Tim Lombard (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

An issue I have been chasing for many months is how we deal with Irish Water. In my part of the world, a water main has broken 18 times in the past 14 months. There was a gate valve so that the village, Ballinhassig, could be fed from both sides. Irish Water has announced that it will look at the issue but it must do a cost-benefit analysis of putting in another gate valve. It involves half a day's work for two men in a place where there are two pubs, one restaurant and a childcare centre. I would love to know if Irish Water has done a cost-benefit analysis of the cost of trade to this village over the past 14 months or looked at the number of times staff and kids have been sent home. The bureaucratic face of Irish Water needs to be looked at. We got an email in our office at 8 a.m. today telling us it was going to put a gate valve in, but only after a cost-benefit analysis. Nobody has looked at how this village has suffered in the past year and we need to have a debate with the Minister of State with responsibility for local government to ask him who is doing a cost-benefit analysis on Irish Water. People deserve better service and this is an issue the Minister has to look at with a view to getting better representation on the ground.