Seanad debates
Tuesday, 7 December 2021
Nithe i dtosach suíonna - Commencement Matters
Water Services
10:30 am
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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Gabhaim buíochas leis an Aire Stáit as ucht teacht isteach arís. Bíonn sé an-fhlaithiúlach. He is very generous with his time in the Seanad. He is always willing to come in and take our questions. This Commencement matter is on the need for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to make a statement on the progress of the taking over of national water services by Irish Water in line with the key performance indicators used by the water advisory body in reporting on the performance of Irish Water, with particular regard to infrastructure delivery.
This is not the first time I have raised the issue of water in this House. I will keep going with it because I firmly believe it is a basic human right. We have very significant issues in that regard. I acknowledge that there has been some good progress. Irish Water has halved the number of places from which raw sewage runs into our waterways. That is good. It is a disgrace that we ever had twice the current number but it is good that some work is being done and that we are getting raw sewage treatment plants in a few places in my own county including Kilrush, Kilkee, Liscannor and Clarecastle. There is also one on its way to Ballyvaughan.
We hear a lot about the town centres first approach, rejuvenating rural areas, rural development and regional balance but these objectives cannot be achieved without proper water infrastructure. There are villages and towns that are really suffering as a result of the lack of such infrastructure. The issue is hindering the building of new houses. There is a shovel-ready project in Broadford. The funds are there to build that housing estate but there is no water infrastructure. We talk about housing but I always bring it back to the basic fact that if there is no water infrastructure, there cannot be housing. It is a very significant issue.
I am raising this issue in respect of Irish Water today for a few different reasons. There is concern about the people in local authorities who work in the area of water and who will be reassigned to Irish Water. They have many fears about that. There have been fears about Irish Water from the get-go, when it was set up. It is time that we, as a House, ask for a referendum on water. The Green Party fought for this to be included in the programme for Government. We have been asking for it for years. Until we are sure that Irish Water will remain in public ownership and will not become a private entity, there will always be a lack of trust in it among the people of our country. We are here to give people hope and faith and to represent them. There is this vagueness around Irish Water and the ownership of water. It is not mentioned in our Constitution. I have written the wording for a referendum if anybody wants to take it from me. We need to affirm public ownership of water in our Constitution. That will alleviate the fears of those whose jobs are to be taken over by Irish Water and of people on the ground. It is a very simple matter.
I have another minute. That is not too bad. There is another matter I wanted to raise. I know that nothing is as simple as you think. People ask why we do not just do X, Y or Z but matters are complicated, as I have learnt over the last year and a half. Even though we know things should be done, it takes longer to do them than we think it should. I will give the Minister of State an example. I spent two and a half years trying to get a water bottle refilling station in one of our lovely local towns, Ennistymon. It is insane that it takes two and a half years to get something as simple as a place to fill a water bottle. I was a councillor so I was able to source some funding but community groups often seek these water bottle refilling stations and the first wall they face is that, when they go to the local authority, they are told that Irish Water charges €2,500 to make the little connection from the pipe below the ground to the device above the ground. I purposely picked a site in the square in Ennistymon that was right beside a water hydrant so that there would be no cost involved because I had heard these crazy rumours that Irish Water was charging domestic households €1,000 per metre of pipe. I tried to remove all the obstacles from the beginning because the first answer you get is often "No."
One arm of the State, Irish Water, charges the local authority €2,500 for a water connection for the public good and for the community, which pays its taxes, and both of these arms of the State actually come under the same Department. We have a water crisis and a plastics crisis. This is a no-brainer. It should not take a two-and-a-half-year campaign. These stations should be popping up in every single town and village in Ireland. We are using more than 1 million plastic bottles a day. I know we have a plan to move away from plastic bottles but we should do that now.
I call on the Minister of State to outline whether the key performance indicators for Irish Water have been looked at and how Irish Water is doing in that regard. We need to give people assurance about water. We definitely need a referendum on water and we need to remove that stumbling block whereby one arm of the State, Irish Water, charges another €2,500 for a connection for a water refill station.
Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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I thank Senator Garvey for bringing these questions to the House. It is one Commencement matter but I will try to address a number of points raised by the Senator. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has responsibility for the overall policy relating to water services and Irish Water but the Water Advisory Board is independently tasked under the Water Services Act 2017 with reviewing Irish Water's performance on a number of key measures. These include measures needed to improve the transparency, accountability and confidence relating to Irish Water and to report, on a quarterly basis, to an Oireachtas committee on the performance by Irish Water in the implementation of its business plan.
The Water Advisory Board submitted its third quarterly review report of 2021 to the Oireachtas on 16 November 2021 and I have a copy for the Senator. This report, which the Minister also received and is currently considering, has been published on the Water Advisory Board's website. The review is focused on a set of performance indicators selected to represent the activities of Irish Water against which conclusions and recommendations have been drawn. The Water Advisory Board report must be seen in the wider context of the significant institutional reform achieved over the past decade, which has seen Irish Water and local authorities making real progress working together since 2014 in delivering a unified and coherent approach to managing our public water systems nationwide.
Clearly, significant and complex challenges remain. With a view to building on these important institutional reforms, in February 2021 the Government published a policy paper entitled Irish Water - Towards a National, Publicly Owned, Regulated Water Services Utility setting out clearly the approach planned by the Government to proceed with the full integration of public water services within Irish Water's organisation structure. This will deliver a publicly owned, stand-alone, regulated, national water utility tasked with modernising and transforming the delivery of water services in Ireland.
In setting out its views and expectations on the next phase of the water sector transformation programme in this way, the Government is enabling water sector stakeholders, including water sector unions and workers and the management representatives of the local government sector and Irish Water, to engage together, facilitated by the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, to identify a framework for the future delivery of water services in keeping with the policy objectives set by the Government. The Government believes it will be possible to achieve a framework for the future delivery of water services which will be in keeping with the key concerns of all stakeholders.
It is the case that there has been significant progress made with that transfer with respect to local authority staff and Irish Water. Those conversations are ongoing but it is a critical part of delivering the single publicly owned utility with respect to Irish Water.
The Senator raised a number of points on water ownership and there is a commitment in the programme for Government to refer the issue of environment, including water, and its place in the Constitution to a relevant Oireachtas joint committee for consideration. That commitment is there, although a number of possible referendums are outlined in the programme for Government as well.
The policy paper on water sector transformation agreed by the Government further commits the Department of Housing, Heritage and Local Government to consult with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions and the local authority group of unions on the proposed referendum. There were concerns around that and the commitment is there as well. Engagement on this matter is under way and will continue in tandem with discussions on employment and staffing matters within the framework support of the WRC.
I will try to address the other points raised in my closing remarks.
Róisín Garvey (Green Party)
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I would like to know with which Oireachtas committee I can raise this. That is if there is a recommendation in the programme for Government in that respect. Irish Water is the water services authority for the country and all the legislative powers required to provide and maintain water services infrastructure now lies solely with Irish Water. It is totally unsatisfactory that the authority created to deliver such infrastructure has no funding capacity for developments with no existing public wastewater infrastructure, according to Clare County Council.
I spoke to that council about Doolin and although Clare is the most beautiful county in Ireland, we are almost punished because tourists are coming to the likes of Doolin and other great places in Clare but we do not have the required infrastructure. With tourism comes spending, which is good for the economy of the country, so I do not know why we have no treatment plant for Doolin or any sign of funding for one. There are thousands of people going to Doolin and the Minister of State knows it is great. If it is music one wants, go to Clare, and Doolin was the start of all that.
There are major issues. I thank the Minister of State for his response but we have work to do.
Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party)
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We do indeed. That is why the Government has committed a record capital funding in budget 2022 to support Irish Water's capital investment programme. There is significant investment. It will take time for projects once they are brought forward to go through tendering and so on. Once local authorities are working with Irish Water and show ambition around delivering those projects, it is critically important that we do get that infrastructure in place. I have the water quality in Ireland report 2020. There are significant challenges, no doubt, concerning wastewater still discharging into water courses. We want to address them as a matter of priority.
Specifically in respect of the water refill stations, I agree with the Senator. It is very important. There is a commitment in the programme for Government around the roll-out of water refill stations. I commend the Senator for the work she has done in County Clare to highlight that. It is part of our circular economy and part of reducing plastic waste. For young people who use our towns regularly, it gives them an opportunity not to be having to buy bottled water. This infrastructure should be installed and we will certainly make inquiries about that issue. We need refill stations installed as a matter of priority around all of our towns across the country.