Dáil Éireann Debate, Tuesday - 4 February 2014
90. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will make available a full copy of the foundation document compiled in his Department in 2013 in relation to Irish Water; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [4978/14]
Amharc ar fhreagra455. Deputy Catherine Murphy asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government if he will make available a full copy of the foundation document compiled in his Department in 2013 in relation to Irish Water; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [5141/14]
Amharc ar fhreagraThis question calls for all documents relating to the creation of Irish Water to be made available to the public. One thing that causes concern and encourages people to believe something else is happening other than what is put in the public domain is the need for them to retrospectively root out information. The creation of Irish Water should have been a much more open process from the start; it should not be about trying to extract information. The Minister said he was not going to micro-manage the project, but why would people not start to think there is something more to the project when the Minister will not provide information publicly? I call for the foundation document to be provided.
I propose to answer Questions Nos. 90 and 455 together.
I have no difficulty with providing any information and if there are documents such as a foundation document, I will make them available to the Deputy. The document to which I assume she is referring is the project initiation document - the starting process in the early days in the Department back in 2012 - which was compiled by Bord Gáis Energy and related to all of the issues that needed to be examined in the setting up of Irish Water. If this project initiation document is the document to which the Deputy refers, I will be glad to make it available to her and all Deputies and place it in the Oireachtas Library.
It deals with the assumptions underlying the programme and the objectives, scope, plan and structure for the programme. It outlines a detailed view of the blueprint of the organisation and the critical path for delivery, including tasks associated with the establishment of the company, the appropriate organisational structure, the functional and business capability and a detailed analysis of what is required from a financial, legal, regulatory, customer and people perspective to achieve establishment in the required timeframe. All of these issues were referred to in detail by the Irish Water executive when it appeared before the committee.
We do not want to discover in six months time that there is another piece of information. It is essential that whatever is available is provided in order that people can scrutinise it and ask questions. Whatever the merits of Irish Water, we need to have this process. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform constantly comes here to speak about new ways of doing things, stating it is not about freedom of information but having a more transparent approach from the word go. That is exactly what should have happened in this case. As we keep speaking about this being a major initiative, why has this position not been adopted? If doing things differently is the ultimate aspiration, why is this about retrospective freedom of information rather than a transparent approach?
The Minister, Deputy Brendan Howlin, has dealt with the issues regarding freedom of information. We have put in place and set in train the necessary orders to ensure it will happen as quickly as possible. We have absolutely nothing to hide with regard to the establishment of Irish Water. It is a very difficult task to establish a new public water utility in the timeframe laid down by the troika. Constraints were put on us and work had to be done in the first place to ensure the right decision was made in the view of the Government with regard to all of the studies conducted. We must do it in a new way because the existing 34 authorities delivering on behalf of the taxpayer do not work as 40% of the pipe network leaks. Successive Governments have invested much money in rehabilitating the pipe network, but 40% of it still leaks. We are examining new and innovative ways to get more capital into the system and deliver the water service product because if we do not, we will have serious problems in the Deputy's constituency and the Dublin area, in particular.
My question is whether Irish Water has merits or if it has been hugely discredited by virtue of the fact that information has been dragged out of the Department. Even with regard to the amount of money invested, it came as a huge surprise to many that it had gone to private consultancies. To be perfectly honest, I am still trying to get my head around how €40 million could have been spent on IT in a very short period of nine months because it suggests a major project could be delivered in such a short space of time. This is the money that was spent. Why would people not have been concerned when they saw neither a framework for spending the money in advance nor a more transparent process?
The Minister has stated successive Governments spent lots of money in trying to fix the leaks from the pipes. In reality, neither the previous Government nor this one spent any money on fixing the pipes. Almost 12 months ago when I asked the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, whether he would fix the pipes before he started spending money on installing meters, he stated absolutely, even if it cost €500 million. Wastewater services will remain within the remit of Irish Water, but local authorities want to deal with pollution. Is this fair, given that it seems local authorities will be cleaning up after problems created by Irish Water's failure to deal with wastewater properly? Responsibility for surface water will remain with local authorities. We all know flooding will be a big factor in the future and is unpredictable. Does the private sector not have an appetite to deal with the unpredictable, such as water problems?
Deputy Mick Wallace is very familiar with difficulties we had in the construction boom in pipes being put just under the surface of the ground, the lack of building controls and dealing with various other issues.
We are trying to deal with those as well, and we will deal with them in respect of new building code regulations as well as investment in the first-leak policy.
Most of the problems with the leaks in this city are 4 m and 5 m down.
The Deputy knows all about it.
Please, Deputy. The Minister to reply.
What we are trying to do is deal with a huge legacy in regard to under-investment in water services, and we must do that under the constraints of a public capital programme, which will be a problem for the next few years whether we like it or not. Dublin, and the east coast in particular, cannot wait that long for investment in water.
Deputy Murphy should be aware that in the traditional sense we have spent approximately €12 million on consultants in terms of legal and accountancy services. The hardware and software IT systems are essential to setting up a new public water utility company in the same way as they were for the single electricity market for electricity generation on which €256 million was spent. By dealing with Bord Gáis in this way we are saving €87 million.
The Deputy might want to be politically blind about this because after all the explanations she got from the Irish Water people as well as the Joint Committee on the Environment, Culture and the Gaeltacht she does not want to see where these savings are made or that we have to do it in this particular way. I challenge the Deputy to tell me the cutbacks she will make in housing, education and health to provide the capital programme for water. The Deputy will find that very difficult to do but we have to find a new way of getting investment in water. This is the vehicle we intend to use to ensure we will not run out of water on the east coast in eight to ten years time.
