Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask for a debate on Irish Water to be arranged and for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, to be invited to attend. I do not think we have had a debate on Irish Water for quite some time.

In Clonmel, which is in my own county of Tipperary, we have waited years for a new water treatment plant and expected that it would arrive at some point. However, on a weekly basis the local water supply must be turned off because of adverse weather conditions and that situation will only worsen over the coming months. The situation has reached the point where people no longer have a water supply in their homes and businesses must close down. Last week, crèches in Clonmel discovered at 8.55 a.m. one morning that they would have no water for a week and the crèche staff had to inform parents as they arrived with their children that nothing could be done and there was no option but to return home. As a result, families had to re-arrange their whole schedules based on that news.

A lack of a water supply infuriates the people who live in Clonmel and the surrounding area. There has been a lack of water in other areas and in the town of Tipperary. On a weekly basis people receive a warning not to use the water and are told there will be no supply for two or three days but within 24 hours of its return the supply is gone again yet there is no accountability. I know that councillors are frustrated at the fact that there is no accountability in terms of Irish Water at public county council meetings. Irish Water receives public funding yet it is not accountable at a public meeting. Irish Water facilitates private meetings but in my view the company needs to be accountable at public council meetings.

I wish to mention more issues that need to be discussed in this House. I refer to connecting houses to wastewater treatment plants. We have a growing disconnect between Irish Water and local authorities. The people who need to be appointed to positions in water services in local authorities are not being appointed by the local authorities because it is not their role to employ them and the same for Irish Water because the company does not want to spend the money on employing these people. In local authorities across the country water services are not being managed because the resources do not exist as neither Irish Water nor local authorities can agree on who actually employs these people.