John Cummins (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Minister of State for bringing this important legislation before us. It is relatively straightforward in what it is seeking to achieve.It seeks to separate Irish Water from Ervia and to establish it as its own stand-alone utility, Uisce Éireann. Despite it being a relatively straight-forward piece of legislation it is obviously lengthy given the amount of transfers involved in the process. In regard to the pre-legislative scrutiny which was carried out by the Oireachtas joint committee, I thank the members for taking on board the suggestions we made, mainly that the CEO would be appointed through the public appointments process, that the new organisation would be subject to the Comptroller and Auditor General and would come before Oireachtas committees to account for itself on which in fairness it has to be said Irish Water has been forthcoming. It has been before our Oireachtas joint committee on a number of occasions and has been more than willing to engage with us on issues that have arisen and also in terms of its ambitious infrastructure plans such as leakage reduction programmes and so on. It is important to state that. It has also engaged personally with me and my colleagues also. I thank Irish Water for its engagement with Members of the Oireachtas on issues. I have always found it to be proactive in trying to resolve issues as they have arisen.

I will mention a couple of points. Notwithstanding that the Minister of State said that the Bill does not deal with the transformation process and the movement of local authority services to Irish Water it would be remiss of us not to highlight some concerns in that area. I appreciate that is an ongoing process that Irish Water is engaging in at the moment in conjunction with the local authorities. My concerns relate to the services that might perhaps fall between two stools for which Irish Water does not necessarily want to take responsibility and the local authorities have always managed. I am thinking of the small group schemes and services that are to the rear of properties in our inner city centre areas. Water is unlike other services such as gas and electricity where services are brought to the front door. In many cases because of historical legacy issues many of the services for water are to the rear of properties. It states that the responsibility for this lies with the homeowner but I have a fundamental issue with that because invariably the person who ends up with the issue is not the person who has contributed to it. There might be six or eight properties on a line with a manhole going into the rear of one property and ultimately the cost of fixing it falls on that individual. Since my time on a local authority in 2009 up to the present local authorities have always used their discretion in assisting such homeowners to resolve issues as they have arisen. I want that flexibility to continue when all services are transferred over to Irish Water. It could become a big issue where the black and white says it is the responsibility of the homeowner but that no flexibility has been built in because Irish Water is under the remit of the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, and there are very much black and white rules. We have to maintain that flexibility which has always been shown by local authorities.

On another point in regard to the transformation process, in sitting on the Joint Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage, obviously all of our focus is on trying to increase the availability of properties for individuals and families throughout the country. However there is often a lag in regard to the services that need to be provided by Irish Water in trying to catch up with zoned land and land that has been brought forward by developers. There has been an excellent programme rolled out by Irish Water in terms of the self-lay programme where Irish Water has essentially certified developers, while overseeing the work that they are carrying out, to be able to lay many of the services themselves. That oversight role is strictly adhered to. Initially an Irish Water contractor was required to carry out all the work. That was adding significant costs. We all know that when we add significant cost onto the build it ends up going on to the purchaser. There are a number of such schemes where Irish Water has taken on board the feedback from the sector and from politicians. I certainly hope that will continue into the future.

I thank the Minister of State for bringing forward this legislation. I acknowledge all the work that has been done by local authority workers throughout the country in regard to water services over the past decades. The new company will provide many opportunities for staff in terms of progression, apprenticeships and graduate programmes. It is a welcome move but it is obviously important that the company remains in public ownership and that is committed to in the programme for Government. I commend the Minister of State on bringing forward the legislation.