Motion re Water Sector Reforms

I know Deputy Fleming will be pleased to hear that money has been put into Irish Water to fix domestic leaks. Everybody will get their first leak fixed at no charge. He says that domestic meters will not find leaks and save water, but Irish Water has already discovered leaks in 22 houses of over 1 million cubic litres per day. That is enough to provide water for the entire town of Gorey, so meters do work.

I have been in the House for seventeen and a half years and we have dealt with terribly difficult social, economic and financial issues over the years, the worst being the collapse of the banks and the later realisation that we had to go cap in hand to the IMF for a bailout. During those years, it seemed that that was the worst possible thing that could happen to us, and I hope it will prove to be. However, none of these issues ever generated the amount of debate, heat and political engagement among the public that water charges have. Nothing has demonstrably upset people in the same way. It leads me to the conclusion that this must be about more than water, a conclusion many others have come to as well. For many people, the high cost of water was an issue, and I welcome the fact that this package has reduced the cost of water. This was the straw that broke the camel’s back. People reached the tipping point after the loss of income and assets and the accretion of charges and taxes that they have endured since 2008. The reaction was exacerbated and given momentum by the fact that we did not handle it in a way that recognised that this was the tipping point. We must admit that we did not adequately make the case for Irish Water. A very strong case can be made for Irish Water. We did not think through the announcements, the level of the charge, the mechanics of collection and the penalties. In the absence of hard facts, rumours abound, and there was no shortage of those willing to fan the flames and sow the seeds of fear in a population already put to the pin of its collar.

 I find myself in agreement with the Opposition on one important point: that some of the disruptive and damaging water debate could have been avoided if the original legislation had been adequately debated in the House rather than restricted to three hours and subject to the guillotine. It is not the first guillotine we have had in the House. In the time I have been here it has been a regular occurrence, but it is possible that some of the flaws in the system, the mistakes and the misunderstandings could have come to light in the course of a lengthy debate. They should have come to light in the House and been dealt with in the House rather than on the street. That is how we resolve problems in a democracy. Democracy can be frustrating, slow and inefficient, but the promise of democratic debate, with its to and fro and the guarantee that the Opposition will get a hearing, is what ensures the consent of the people to be governed even by a Government they did not elect and that they may not like. The democratic debate, with all its flaws and the flaws of its participants, is the safeguard of our democracy and we ignore it at our peril.

 I put on the record my strong support for water charges. When I canvassed during the general election campaign, I told people at the doors there would be water charges in the programme for Government. Many thousands of people voted for water charges. I welcome that the conservation element is strong, and it will be stronger when we move to a metering system when all the meters are in. We must deal with the leaks now. I welcome the announcement that, as soon as we have meters, we can strive to beat the cap through water-saving. It is a conservation principle recognised and practised the world over. It is a no-brainer, and for people to come in here and talk about the problems of metering water or say that we should not meter water because it is a human right is a nonsense. People are entitled to water, but it is an expensive and scarce resource. It makes little sense to use expensively collected, treated, stored and distributed water to wash our cars or water our lawns, or to allow it to seep into the ground through leaks. Even if we had all the money in the world, it would make sense to charge for water and encourage people to conserve it. We do not have all the money in the world, however, and we need investment. In my constituency, the pipe that brings water to most of Dublin was laid by Queen Victoria’s Government. I have seen a cross-section of it; the diameter has halved and it is held together by a cobweb of rust. We need to invest in it before it finally goes. We already have a lack of capacity in Dublin, which has cost us jobs. We have been talking about replacing the pipes and the distribution network for as long as I can remember, perhaps more than 30 years, but we have not moved even one inch closer to implementation. The population has increased in Dublin, but the catchment area has not increased. The catchment area has not been defined for the new source of water to serve Dublin. I could speak about sewage going into rivers and seas.

 Local authorities have many schemes but, without the potential for decent economies of scale, many of schemes were never implemented and had no prospect of being implemented. Water catchment schemes and wastewater schemes in a small country need to be seen as regional or national schemes. Counties need to co-ordinate and share schemes to achieve maximum efficiency. Irish Water is already tackling the most urgent schemes with a view to early delivery. This work is being carried out by the much-maligned engineers taken from the councils, who are now working flat-out devising vital water and wastewater schemes that will save us billions. These schemes had no prospect of being delivered without Irish Water. When the first wave of work is done there will be no need for that number of staff, and staff levels and costs will go down with natural wastage. Costs will also go down when we have a better water network. That is a good news story that we probably did not tell very well. On the other hand, there are those who did not want to hear it.

 If there was a failure on our side to recognise that people were at the tipping point, there is no excuse for the kind of violence and disruption we saw at the weekend. The elected Members of Parliament who defended those actions know the dynamics of a crowd and that a peaceful demonstration, if manipulated and encouraged by a handful of people, can become a rioting mob that cannot be controlled. Neither is there a place in a democracy for threatening Ministers or telling them they are in danger of being attacked if they go into deprived areas. That is an insult to the people living in deprived areas.

 I heard the woman who tried to restrain the Taoiseach when he was arriving at an event in Sligo defending herself. Does she realise that if she lived in any other country she would be in prison? If she tried to do that to President Obama, she would be in prison.