2026-01-14

I move: That Dáil Éireann: acknowledges that: — a significant proportion of the State's public drinking water and wastewater infrastructure remains leaking, overloaded, obsolete or non-compliant, resulting in boil water notices, service interruptions, supply restrictions and untreated or partially treated wastewater discharges; — persistent delays in the delivery, repair and replacement of water and wastewater infrastructure have created direct blockages to housing delivery, public health protection, economic activity and environmental compliance; — Uisce Éireann has repeatedly failed to meet expected performance standards in leakage reduction, network renewal, upgrade delivery and system resilience, while many communities continue to endure chronic outages, repeated pipe failures and wastewater incidents; — existing statutory and regulatory frameworks do not impose clear and enforceable repair or replacement timelines on Uisce Éireann following the detection of leaks, bursts or wastewater failures; — communities affected by repeated infrastructure failures currently have no guaranteed consultation process, no published delivery schedule and no certainty as to whether or when permanent solutions will be delivered; and — the centralisation of water services has weakened local accountability, reduced responsiveness to community-level failures and contributed to slow and opaque decision-making on urgent infrastructure needs; notes that: — prolonged discharges of raw or partially treated wastewater into rivers, coastal waters and sensitive catchments represent an ongoing risk to public health and environmental quality and undermine confidence in national infrastructure governance; — large volumes of treated drinking water continue to be lost through chronic leakage, placing avoidable pressure on treatment capacity and increasing operational costs; — repeated short-term repairs without full pipe replacement have resulted in cycles of failure in many towns, villages and urban neighbourhoods, leaving residents without confidence in the reliability of public water supply; — the absence of statutory repair deadlines has allowed wastewater leaks and discharges to persist for extended periods without guaranteed interim mitigation or permanent remediation; — delays in water and wastewater capacity upgrades have directly impeded housing delivery, public services, tourism and enterprise development, despite lands being zoned and planning permission granted; and — the current model provides no structured mechanism for early engagement with communities experiencing persistent failures, unlike the pre-planning consultation processes required for private development; and calls on the Government to: — legislate for mandatory statutory timelines, requiring Uisce Éireann to commence mitigation works for wastewater leaks or discharges within one month of detection and to complete permanent repairs or provide an approved interim solution within a defined and enforceable period thereafter; — require Uisce Éireann to establish binding replacement timelines for water mains in communities experiencing repeated bursts or chronic leakage, including full pipe renewal rather than recurring temporary repairs; — place a statutory obligation on Uisce Éireann to publish repair and replacement schedules for affected communities, including clear dates, scope of works and interim measures; — require Uisce Éireann to introduce a formal community engagement process, comparable to pre-planning consultation, in areas experiencing persistent water or wastewater failures, ensuring residents and local authorities are informed in advance of proposed works, timelines and expected outcomes; — require Uisce Éireann to operate a properly functioning communication line and escalation channel for public representatives, to allow timely resolution of issues, clear status updates and improved accountability; — establish binding delivery schedules for wastewater treatment plants, network upgrades and strategic leakage-reduction programmes, with annual reporting to the Houses of the Oireachtas on progress, delays and compliance; — reform regulatory oversight so that verified wastewater discharges and serious non-compliance events are reported publicly in a timely and transparent manner, with escalation mechanisms where failures persist; — require Uisce Éireann to publish a national infrastructure capacity and delivery map identifying constraints, upgrade priorities and timelines to support housing activation and public infrastructure planning; — allow a regulated alternative delivery route for essential water and wastewater projects where Uisce Éireann cannot provide capacity within a reasonable timeframe, using approved public/private or developer-led models, subject to domestic regulatory approval and public ownership or control of strategic water assets; and — establish a performance-linked funding framework for Uisce Éireann and relevant agencies, tying elements of capital allocation to timely delivery, leakage reduction, repair compliance, infrastructure resilience and environmental performance. Our motion speaks to a truth. Too many communities in Ireland already know that our public water and wastewater systems are not just creaking, but they are failing, and those failures are costing us homes, health, habitats and hope. A significant portion of our infrastructure is leaking, overloaded, obsolete or non-compliant. That reality shows up as boil water notices, service interruptions, supply restrictions and raw or partially treated sewage discharges into our rivers and coastal waters. It shows up as stalled housing schemes, planning refusals and shuttered community amenities. It shows up in the daily lives of families who cannot rely on a glass of safe water from the tap. It shows up in the starkest terms in west Cork, where communities have waited not for months, but for years, and decades in some cases, for basic, permanent fixes. This is not a funding footnote or a scheduling slip. It is a systemic problem of delivery, accountability and transparency. Uisce Éireann has repeatedly failed to meet performance standards on leakage reduction, network renewal, upgrade delivery and system resilience, while too many communities face chronic outages, repeated bursts and wastewater incidents with no certainty as to when permanent solutions will be delivered. Our motion is rooted in the lived experiences we have brought to the House again and again. Allow me to set out a few of the worst affected places in Cork South-West. This is a national picture but I will give it closer to home at the moment. Since last July, Adrigole in the Beara Peninsula has suffered up to 14 water outages, cutting off farms, schools and crèches for days at a time. One outage led to closures. Others forced families with small babies to move out temporarily. A critical asbestos pipe along the Healy Pass needs replacement, yet crews have been out again and again for short-term fixes, sometimes for two weeks at a time, rather than replacing the failing section. People there rightly ask why a Dublin burst is addressed in hours, while Adrigole waits and waits. That is the definition of unequal services. Over Christmas, they had yet another water outage, making it 15 since last July. Shannonvale, near Clonakilty, has endured a 26-year saga of sewage flooding a village green, which was a community field, and contaminating a local playground. Despite community action and repeated representation, transparency and timelines have been elusive. In 2025, Uisce Éireann was prosecuted by the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, and fined in the District Court for breaches at Shannonvale Park, yet the core project still lacks a clear, funded and time-bound solution. Workshops are convened, cancelled and reconvened. Designs are approved and then sent back to the drawing board. It is a case study in institutional drift, with real environmental and public health consequences. For a decade, untreated or poorly treated wastewater has repeatedly threatened Ballydehob Bay, part of the Roaringwater Bay and islands special area of conservation under the EU habitats directive. I raised the case in this House. Community petitions have sought urgent action yet the upgrade remains stuck in a long queue while biodiversity and community development bear the cost. Across the towns of Goleen, Rosscarbery and Dunmanway, the theme is the same - no meaningful investment, rising environmental risk and growth stalled by infrastructure that is either at capacity or failing. In Dunmanway in particular, the wastewater treatment plant is operating at capacity and has overloaded imposing effective planning bans. That means young families cannot get permission to build homes in their own town. We are told proper relief may not come until 2032. A temporary job may be done just to seal up some modes but for a generation trying to put down roots, 2032 is not a plan; it is a lock on the door. These are symptoms of a system that responds slowly, communicates poorly and plans without enforceable obligations to deliver. Our motion responds with the practical enforceable measures. We want statutory repair timelines. When a wastewater leak or discharge is detected, mitigation must begin within one month with a defined and enforceable timeframe to deliver permanent repair or an improved interim solution. Communities like Shannonvale cannot endure year after year of workshop purgatory. We want binding replacement schedules for chronic mains failures. Where bursts are repeated, their default must be full mains renewal and not another patch over of an asbestos or legacy pipe that is certain to fail again as Adrigole has shown. We want transparent public schedules. Uisce Éireann must publish repair and replacement schedules for affected areas with dates, scope and interim measures so people know what is coming and with no more opaque timelines and no more "we will revert". We want formal community engagement for persistent failure. If private developers are obliged to consult in preplanning then a semi-State body should be obliged to engage with communities facing repeated failures before and not after the next outage. We want a functioning escalation channel for public representatives. When a school has to close, a plant overflows or a village green is flooded with sewage, there must be a live line and a mandated escalation path to a responsible decision-maker with authority to act. We want binding delivery schedules and annual Oireachtas reporting. Wastewater plant network upgrades and strategic leakage reductions must be delivered to published timelines with transparent annual reporting to this House and progress delays and compliance. We want to reform regulatory oversight with timely public reporting. Verified discharges and serious non-compliance events should trigger prompt public reporting and escalation. Communities should not learn about failures from social media. We want national capacity and a delivery map. A live national map should be published identifying constraints, priorities and timelines. Housing cannot be planned on hope. Councils and communities need hard data to activate zoned lands. We want alternative regulated delivery routes. Where Uisce Éireann cannot provide capacity in a reasonable timeframe, we need a regulated path for public, private or developer-led delivery with domestic regulatory approval and public ownership or control of strategic assets. This is not ideology. It is urgency. We want performance linked to funding - the elements of capital allocation to timely delivery, leakage reduction, repair, compliance, resilience and environmental performance. We need to reward what works and stop paying indefinitely for what does not. We need deadlines. Focused delivery and transparency build trust, engagement prevents conflict and performance links funding and aligns incentives with outcomes. If these principles are standards in transport, health capital and even private utility regulation, they must be standard in water and wastewater too. Take the housing emergency. Dunmanway today is the sharp edge of a national problem. Wastewater plants are at over capacity and were leaking, blocking permissions in towns and villages across the country. In Dunmanway alone, we have seen developments cancelled and young couples told to wait nine, ten or 12 years before they can build near family, jobs and schools. Without a statutory timeline and alternative delivery routes, we consign entire communities to stagnation Consider environmental protection. Ballydehob's proximity to a special area of conservation means that repeated discharges are not just local nuisances; they are threatening habitats and biodiversity protected under EU law. Delay multiplies risk. An enforceable timetable and transparent reporting would turn "we are working on it" into a clear milestone with consequences for slippage. Look at public confidence. Shannonvale has endured a 26-year ordeal culminating in a prosecution and a fine but fines without fixes do not restore a park, clean a river or reassure a parent. Only delivery does that. Our motion turns accountability into action with deadlines, schedules, engagement, alternative routes and funding that follows performance. Centralisation was supposed to standardise excellence. Instead too often it has standardised silence. When the people of Adrigole or Goleen, who have been waiting 26 years with raw sewage going into the river, cannot get a straight answer or a firm date, it is astonishing. I am in the community voluntary group there. We did our best to bring people from all over the world to the council in 1999 to try to resolve the crisis and here we are 2026 in the same situation. Raw sewage is still pouring into the river but the EPA turns a blind eye because it is Uisce Éireann. If a farmer was pouring sewage into clean rivers, there would be a national crisis and he would be put out of business within a few weeks so there are double standards here. I would like to know why the EPA is aiding and abetting Uisce Éireann's shocking record by not going after it and making it accountable. There were three fines in 2024 - three fines in Ireland. There are six communities where raw sewage is going into clean waters in west Cork alone so what the name of God is the EPA doing? It is sound asleep at the wheel and is aiding and abetting this carry on. We cannot get a straight answer for a firm date from Uisce Éireann for Rosscarbery, where raw sewage is going into the water, or Dunmanway, where we see growth capped by capacity and spills. When Shannonvale sees another workshop instead of a works crew, that is a failure of accountability as much as it is a failure of engineering. Local government, public representatives and community groups need structured statutory roles in signalling affairs, setting priorities and monitoring delivery. If we treat community feedback as an obstacle rather than an early warning system, we will keep learning the same lessons at an ever greater cost. There is a myth that delay is cheaper. It is not. Chronic leakage and waste-treated drinking water inflate operational costs. Repeated emergency calls burn resources that would be better spent on permanent renewal. Stalled housing imposes fiscal and social costs while pollution triggers remediation, institutional damage and legal liability. The choice is not spend now or save later. The real choice is between planned investment with accountability and unplanned crisis spending without end. Communities in west Cork and Ireland are not asking for luxuries. They are asking for the basics - safe water, reliable wastewater treatment plants, timely repairs and credible plans that they can see and trust. Adrigole should not be left counting its 14th outage, Shannonvale should not be left counting its 26-year problem, Ballydehob should not be left counting 17 years and Goleen should not be left counting 26 years. They should not be left counting the species at risk. Dunmanway should not be left counting the years to 2032 while a generation gives up on building homes. This House has the power to change that. By supporting this motion, we move from promises to proof, from press releases to published schedules and from "we will revert" to "we will deliver". We will put timelines into law, transparency into operation and performance into funding. We will bring local voices into rooms and ensure that when things go wrong, there is a number to call and someone on the other end.

One of the biggest problems of this Government over the past ten to 15 years has been its absolute inability to build infrastructure. Probably the biggest legacy element of the Government is that it cannot deliver necessary infrastructure and could not deliver it on time. Regardless of whether we are looking at housing, healthcare and hospitals, transport infrastructure like motorways, rail lines and roads or water infrastructure, it is a hallmark or fingerprint of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael that they simply cannot deliver infrastructure. One of the reasons for that the fact most of their Ministers are simply passengers on the bus. They are reading press statements delivered by the permanent government, they are not in charge of the direction of Departments and they are not driving the situation for people. This is having an enormous impact on people's lives. On a range of different issues now the fabric of society is being negatively affected by the Government's inability to build infrastructure. For years I have noticed that when an election comes up the Government does not want to talk about the subject of infrastructure that affects people's lives. It is much happier to launch a tax cut at a certain rate to get on the front pages of the Sunday papers before an election. The Government has never taken infrastructure properly seriously over the past number of years. A number of things are happening. After the crash, the Government for ten years had the lowest spend on infrastructure in the whole of the European Union bar Romania. Only Romania beat us to the bottom rung of that ladder for infrastructural spend. For more than a decade we did not even keep up with the depreciation of our capital infrastructure, never mind building the new infrastructure. The second thing is that there has been a massive increase in population. The infrastructural capital we have is coming under enormous pressure from the population increase. The third element is the lack of accountability in the system. Due to the lack of accountability in the system, there has not been the necessary pressure to make sure infrastructural development is happening. That is having a large effect on society. In terms of housing, water infrastructure has an enormous impact. Uisce Éireann appeared at the infrastructure committee a couple of months ago. I asked its representatives how long it would take them to fill the gaps in water infrastructure that are currently blocking the building of homes in Ireland. They said, as if it were a positive, that by 2050 they will have those gaps filled. For at least another 25 years, we will have the absence of water infrastructure preventing the building of homes in Ireland. The housing crisis is going on so long that people have nearly become used to it. However, it is still shocking to think the housing crisis could be rolling on for another 25 years. Another element is the massive level of leakages that are happening. In the Dublin area we know that 35% of water that is treated and pumped through the system is being lost through the haphazard infrastructure in the Dublin region. At the same time the Government is looking to take water from the acting chair's constituency in the Parteen basin and pump it to Dublin, a project that will cost billions of euro if it happens on time at all, rather than fixing the problem that exists. Most people's first instinct, where you are losing product and replacing it, is to fix where you are losing it, so you do not have the added cost of generating more of the product to fill what is being lost. The first responsibility of a government is to keep the lights on and put water in the taps. Right now, this Government is famously failing to keep the lights on. There are many electricity outages throughout the country at the moment, which are hardly being reported. It also needs to put water in the taps. I will give an example from my constituency in County Meath. In the past two years there have been 125 water outages in the Trim area. That is incredible. That is Third World standard. It is developing country standard delivery of infrastructure. It is incredible. During Christmas gone by a whole swathe of Trim had no water for three days over Christmas. This is not a luxury product we are talking about. For people with disabilities, older people and people with young children, this is an absolute necessity and yet the Government has not been able to deliver that water into the infrastructure on time and when needed. It is not a once-off; it is 125 times. Water infrastructure in the whole of County Meath is massively underdelivered. That has had a negative effect on our ability to bring industry into the county and to create jobs and therefore business rates that go into the development of community facilities, including such things as playgrounds. Even in places like Enfield, Ballivor and Summerhill we have had tanks of water being driven into those towns to deliver water to individuals. We have had cafes, shops and restaurants closing for full days with the loss of that income because of the lack of water delivery. This has not been happening for a week, a month or a year. It is happening for well over a decade. It is astounding that Fianna Fáil cannot do infrastructure. It is a disaster when it comes to infrastructure. As a result, there is major suffering in society. It took two hours for people in Meath to get to work in Dublin today because of the lack of a rail line Noel Dempsey promised in 1996 that if we are lucky will be completed in 2036; 42 years from concept to completion. It was built in three years in 1896 with picks and shovels. That is the compare and contrast of this Government's inability to build infrastructure now compared with what it was in the past. Sewage being deposited in rivers and in the sea in this country is an absolute disgrace. If it were farmers, business people or any other sector of society the State would be down on them like a ton of bricks. There would be massive fines and real pressure put on those individuals to make sure they are cleaning the water before it gets into the rivers. This Government through its public companies is delivering sewage wholesale into the water system, doing enormous damage to drinking water, bathing water and to the biodiversity that exists in many of the rivers in this country. Our water systems are sick because of this Government's lack of ability to build infrastructure. Contrast that with the billions of euro at its disposal. We have nothing to show for the billions of euro we have received over the past two decades, except incompetency.

I move amendment No. 1: To delete all words after "Dáil Éireann" and substitute the following: "notes that: — the Government's vision for water services is set out in the Water Services Policy Statement 2024 to 2030 (February 2024), which sets out three main objectives; availability and reliability, safety and quality and sustainability, along with a series of related priorities for water services delivery in the period to 2030, and beyond; — the Government's Water Sector Transformation Policy Paper (February 2021) further sets the vision for water services based on the full integration of water services provided by 31 local authorities into one national authority; — the objective is to deliver a world-class public water services authority that meets customer needs, operates in line with best practice, represents value for money, and facilitates economic development in urban and rural locations; — Uisce Éireann is the national utility for drinking water and wastewater services; — Uisce Éireann manage and operate some 700 water treatment plants, 1,000 wastewater treatment plants and over 4,000 water and wastewater pumping stations; — Uisce Éireann oversees over 65,000 kilometres (km) of water pipes and over 26,000 km of public sewers all processing roughly 3 billion litres of water and wastewater every day; — all of these assets and all of this activity is dedicated to delivering vital services to almost two million homes and business premises; — Uisce Éireann supplies drinking water to over 80 per cent of the population, 10 per cent of households get their drinking water from private wells while the remaining 6 per cent of households have their drinking water supplied by group schemes; — in relation to wastewater, two thirds of households are connected to public wastewater services provided by Uisce Éireann, with virtually all of the remaining one third of households disposing of wastewater using septic tanks; — Uisce Éireann's Board has responsibility for ensuring that the company delivers on its mandate and properly accounts for the financial resources made available to it; — Uisce Éireann is subject to economic regulation by the Commission for Regulation of Utilities, that provides a constraint over the funding while monitoring performance and providing a complaints resolution service to customers; and — Uisce Éireann is subject to a dual audit by the Office of the Comptroller and Auditor General and commercial auditors along with being accountable to the Oireachtas Public Accounts Committee; further notes that: — Uisce Éireann consistently meets high standards in the supply of drinking water, with the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) noting in its most recent report in 2024, that 99.8 per cent of drinking water supplies meet all relevant standards, confirming that water provided by Uisce Éireann is safe to drink and that the EPA is providing robust regulatory oversight of Uisce Éireann when issues do arise; — Uisce Éireann has completed new wastewater infrastructure for 135 towns and villages, including the elimination of raw sewage discharges from 15 towns and villages; — urban wastewater is fourth in terms of sectoral pressure on water bodies behind agriculture, hydromorphology and forestry; — in the past 11 years, Uisce Éireann has ramped up capital delivery for water services and infrastructure from €300 million in 2014 to roughly €1.3 billion in 2025; — finding and fixing leaks is difficult and resource intensive work, but investment by Uisce Éireann of €2 billion over the last ten years has meant that Uisce Éireann has made significant progress and reduced leakage nationally from 48 per cent to 36 per cent; and — Uisce Éireann has advanced major projects in water supply and wastewater treatment notably the Water Supply Project – Eastern and Midlands Region and the Greater Dublin Drainage Project that will be transformational and two of the biggest infrastructure projects in the history of the State; and highlights that: — the Government is delivering a sustainable funding path to further enhance the ongoing significant improvements in our public water and wastewater services; — under the revised National Development Plan (NDP), the Government has scaled up support for the water sector with a record allocation of €12.2 billion in funding out to 2030; — Uisce Éireann will be allocated 95 per cent or €11.7 billion of the NDP funding over the next five years to support the delivery of a wide range of projects in our cities and regions required for housing delivery, safeguarding public health and the environment; — crucially, the delivery of the additional water services under the NDP will enable the capacity required for our new housing targets; — Uisce Éireann will implement a large national growth programme along with an enhanced Small Towns and Villages Growth Programme, to support our housing delivery for our urban and rural communities; and — only a national authority, backed by strong Government investment in water infrastructure, will deliver the standard of water and wastewater networks and environmental management systems required by Irish citizens and consumers in the 21st century.". I thank the Deputies for the opportunity to speak on this important matter. Our water infrastructure is vital to our health, our economy and our environment. Access to safe and clean drinking water for everyone is a top priority for the Government. The process of establishing Uisce Éireann as a stand-alone public utility continues to be a work in progress and it is only at the end of this year that the link with local authorities will finally be broken. The motivation for a stand-alone utility stems from the inherent inefficiencies of a fragmented network operated by 31 local authorities. It has also been stated and acknowledged many times in the House that a legacy of underinvestment in our water infrastructure by the local authorities means that there are many challenges Uisce Eireann is now seeking to address while also providing for significantly increased capacity for future business and population growth. We all see the evidence of the challenges in our constituencies linked to creaking infrastructure or the demands of growth. I am therefore working closely with Uisce Éireann to seek to ensure that the necessary resources are available to it and the challenges are tackled on a prioritised basis. There are record levels of funding being provided through the new national development plan. The scale of remedial work necessary in our water and wastewater systems will however take a number of years and investment cycles to resolve. Where new treatment plants or significant upgrades of existing plants are required, the design, planning procurement, construction and commissioning processes can take significant time. Through the national development plan, the Government is delivering a sustainable funding path to drive significant improvements in our public water and wastewater services. Since its inception as Ireland’s single public water utility in 2014, Uisce Éireann has steadily grown its capital investment in our water infrastructure, from €300 million in 2014 to €1.4 billion in 2026. However, this is only the start. Under the revised national development plan, €11.7 billion is being invested in Uisce Éireann to secure our water infrastructure for the future. This investment covers every part of our water infrastructure and every community, from the smallest to the largest, both urban and rural. In terms of environmental compliance, it is important to acknowledge that Uisce Éireann consistently meets high standards in the supply of drinking water as outlined in the motion, confirming that water provided by Uisce Éireann is safe to drink. The most recent EPA report on wastewater treatment covering 2024 noted that 92% of our large urban areas comply with EU standards for wastewater and 96% of our bathing waters are also compliant. When issues do arise and are identified by the EPA through its priority areas list, Uisce Éireann works actively to address these, with dedicated resources and specific plans. The Commission for Regulation of Utilities, CRU, is the independent economic regulator of Uisce Éireann. The CRU provides a constraint over Uisce Éireann revenue, improving investment plans while monitoring performance and ensuring it runs efficiently. The CRU also has a role in protecting customers by setting service standards, handling complaints and providing dispute resolution for customer complaints that cannot be resolved with Uisce Éireann. Apart from being scrutinised by its statutory regulator, Uisce Éireann is also subject to rigorous financial scrutiny by way of dual audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General and commercial auditors, as well as being accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts and appearing before various other Oireachtas committees. I am well aware that there are concerns about communications between Uisce Éireann and the public, including public representatives. I met last year the chairman of Uisce Éireann and raised this issue. I have received assurances that it is a priority for the company. Uisce Éireann has constant contact with a diverse and large group of customers, communities and stakeholders through multiple channels daily. The means include online, digital and social media channels, along with a free text alert service that provides water-supply updates and information to customers across 1. 6 million households and businesses. Uisce Éireann also maintains a vulnerable customer register, where more or specialist support is offered, particularly in the case of an incident. Uisce Éireann also provides a dedicated service for elected representatives. Over the past ten years, Uisce Éireann has responded to over 100,000 queries directly received from over 1,100 elected representatives. Uisce Éireann holds annual in-person councillor workshops for all 31 local authorities to provide an update on service delivery and current and future investment in each county. However, I accept that communications by Uisce Éireann need to be improved significantly. Uisce Éireann is the national utility for drinking water and wastewater services, with the objective of providing a world-class public water service that meets customer needs, operates in line with best practice, represents value for money and facilitates economic development in urban and rural locations. The Government is committed to ensuring all areas of our water infrastructure are strengthened and that all our communities feel the benefits of this unprecedented investment in water services. Only a national water utility, backed by strong Government investment in water infrastructure, will deliver the standard of water and wastewater networks and environmental management systems required by our people for the 21st century. I will continue to work closely with Uisce Éireann and my colleagues across the Dáil and Seanad to ensure we remain firmly on the pathway to improved services delivery for all of our citizens.

Next is the Independent Technical Group, beginning with an Teachta Michael Collins.

I have already spoken.

Tá go maith. I call Deputy Ken O'Flynn.

I thank the Chair. I will be taking the time of Deputy Gogarty as he is detained. I thank the Minister for his speech. He mentioned a minute and a half into it that Uisce Éireann has a dedicated service not only for elected representatives but also for the most vulnerable. I have attended many of the meetings with Uisce Éireann. As Members may be aware, I have raised in this House the appalling water conditions on the northside of Cork city and the southside, in the Taoiseach's own constituency. Questions were put to Uisce Éireann on vulnerable people with brown water, lead in water and water that is undrinkable. We asked what happens if the person affected is visually impaired. The reply from the engineers of Uisce Éireann was that he or she should be asked to call a neighbour or ring a friend so they could possibly check the water for him or her or fill jugs of water the night before an issue arises. That is not a proper answer for somebody who is visually impaired. When Uisce Éireann gives the Minister some speaking notes for this House, I do not know if it is being 100% accurate. I want to refer to my own constituency, Cork North-Central. We received a briefing not so long ago from Uisce Éireann telling us that replacing the lead pipes and broken pipes in the constituency would entail a €1 billion project. That is not frightening money when we realise the amount of infrastructure needed. We were told that if in a wonderful world the Department of Finance granted the €1 billion needed for the northside of the city, it would take, at the current rate of delivery of Uisce Éireann across Cork, 96 years to replace every broken pipe that has been in place since Victorian times. That is what we are told in Cork. I have brought the water into this House and showed it to the Taoiseach. I am sure he has been in houses on the southside of the city – around the Turners Cross area, where he is from originally – where the water is brown and murky even if left running for three to six hours. People cannot take showers, bathe children or put a load in the washing machine. There are people who have had to replace shower units three, four or five times in the past three years. People have had to replace washing machines and people have had expensive bedding destroyed because they did not know what was going to come out of the tap. People cannot fill a kettle any more. Pubs and cafes are running a risk. Most pubs on the northside of the city and in parts of the city centre have disconnected their ice machines. We do not know when we wake up in the morning whether we can actually go to the tap and have a glass of water, something you would think is a basic right. Very often, we turn on our televisions and see appeals for villages in Africa or footage of water coming out of taps in African villages. That brown, dirty, murky water is exactly the same colour as the water coming out of the taps in Cork city. The Minister should reflect on that for a moment. That is what people on the northside, in my constituency, and parts of the southside of the city, in the Taoiseach's own constituency, must deal with daily. They have been doing so not for one, two or three months but for over five years. They have been putting up with it for over five years, only to be told a billion euro is needed and that they must wait 90 years. How can someone sell a home in Gurranabraher or Turners Cross if they cannot guarantee an engineer's report showing the water coming into that structure is safe and consumable? We talk about water outages and burst pipes. We have had burst pipes. As public representatives, we are down on our knees, like we were over New Year's Eve, New Year's Day and the following days, begging for some water tankers for the Ballyvolane and Mayfield areas of Cork city, because people can be without water for up to six days at a time. That is what we are dealing with when dealing with Uisce Éireann. The Minister mentioned the national representative line, which, as he has mentioned here, has received over 100,000 complaints. When you pick it up and state you are a TD, local councillor or local representative for a certain party, you are asked in the first instance, before the representation can be opened, for an eircode. This is despite the fact that you are talking about an entire community that has suffered from water damage, pipe breakage, unavailable water, or brown, dirty, filthy water coming through its pipes. The person asking for the eircode is just somebody assigned to the local area representatives' telephone line on the day rather than a provider of a dedicated service that understands the need of a community representative, local councillor or TD who is calling on behalf of a wider community. The EPA has not been down to Cork. It has come and looked at the water and said there is a problem and that it will do this and that examination. I recognise that money has been spent in Cork city, but it has not been spent fast enough and has not been allocated in sufficient quantities, by any means. Considering that we have been told it will take 90 years to repair the problem, the Minister and I will not see the day when Cork has fresh water on the northside and when the pipes will run clear in all of the northside of the city. That is absolutely an atrocity and a shame. My colleague in Aontú said earlier that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do not do infrastructure well. They do not do infrastructure at all. Let me give an example of something I have come across: a statement of design acceptance, SoDA, report. Recently, I was contacted by a developer who was ready to break ground. He was told before he applied for planning permission for 90 houses in the Ballyvolane area that he needed something called a SoDA report. Honestly, I had never heard of it myself. I had to contact Uisce Éireann on 12 separate occasions by email and telephone, asking if I could get the SoDA report so this gentleman could go in and apply for planning. That was just to confirm that there was a water treatment facility. By the way, the water treatment facility was about 200 m from the site, but he could not go to Cork City Council and apply for planning. What happened then? It was delayed by nine months, and the price of houses is now up by almost €80,000 from what he intended to sell them for in the first place. That is what we are up against. We have spoken about 35% leakage in Dublin. The leakage around the country is at an average of 40% and in some places, it is as high as 56%. We talk about infrastructure and what we can deliver around the country. I noticed that in Blarney in my own constituency, Cork City Council had to dezone hectares of land because Uisce Éireann came along and said it had no intention whatsoever of developing any water treatment in Blarney for the next 20 years. That will result in no houses being built in a satellite village outside Cork city centre. As the Minister may know, Blarney has been part of Cork city because it has been extended into the city in the last number of years. We are looking at a satellite village - my mother and father's parish of Blarney - where the people who want to stay in Blarney and invest in Blarney have no opportunity to buy a brand-new home in Blarney, and second-hand homes are just not coming up, full stop. That is what we are left with when it comes to the lack of infrastructure around my constituency in Cork. I have looked at the Minister's response. I do not know if a civil servant wrote it for him. I do not know if Uisce Éireann gave him a press statement to read out. However, it seems that, far too often, Ministers in all the different Departments of this Government, who are operating as chairmen of their Departments, are handed scripts to read and told, “Here you go, there is the answer, do not worry about it, the best thing you can do is get out of this office and go down and cut a ribbon in Waterford, then head up to Donegal after that and unveil a plaque, here is a speech to read, turn a sod here and turn a sod there, off you go and stay out of our way because we are the permanent government.” That seems to be the day-to-day business of the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael Administration because of poor decisions made at the top, putting people into jobs that, first, they are not interested in doing and, second, where they are looking for another gig somewhere else and their priorities are not fixing the problems that are there in front of them.

I listened very carefully to the Minister's contribution, and I have to say it was somewhat disappointing. There is no doubt that many aspects of our drinking water and wastewater systems work, and work well. I want to put on record that there have been improvements in recent years in parts of the country in the operation of the utility. However, as the Minister has heard from the Deputies proposing the motion, and as he will hear from my colleagues, there are many parts of this country where our water and wastewater treatment services are not working adequately. While the focus of this debate is on Uisce Éireann, much of the responsibility for those failures lies in fact with the Government. The Minister talked about significant increases in funding, but what he failed to mention, of course, was that Uisce Éireann came to the Government over two years ago seeking very significant increases in capital expenditure to meet the demand for increased water and wastewater treatment facilities in urban and rural Ireland. The Government delayed for over two years, but still today, despite the big announcement at the budget, it is unclear how much money is going to be available, when it is going to be available and for what projects. When we were dealing with the Planning and Development Bill with the Minister's predecessor, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, the utilities, including Uisce Éireann, made a very strong and compelling case to the committee that there needed to be a number of key reforms to the planning system to expedite those increased treatment facilities. We need to prioritise critical infrastructure. We need to have parallel consenting and planning approvals, and dramatic increases in staffing, both for the Planning and Environment Court and for our planning authorities. When we tabled amendments to that Bill, the Minister's party and his predecessor opposed them. Now, here we are, two years later, and the Minister is saying he is thinking about introducing the very same crucial planning reforms that we proposed over two years ago. We also have significant EU infringement proceedings against the State for failures to transpose and, crucially, comply with both the urban wastewater treatment directive and the drinking water directive. In fact, the most recent of those infringement proceedings was initiated last year while Deputy Browne was the Minister in charge. While the number of wastewater treatment plants pouring raw sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas has reduced, it is still unacceptably high. The Minister's failure to provide sufficient capital funding and planning reforms is delaying the ability of the utility to address those. There are also very significant legacy issues. We have already heard about the slow pace of addressing leakage, both in urban and rural Ireland, within the existing system. However, we also have over 400 housing estates that still have legacy issues arising from Celtic tiger era relating to developer-provided infrastructure, primarily in rural communities. The Government is not providing sufficient funding to the utility and local authorities to address all of those. The Minister rightly mentioned that there were challenges and inadequacies in Uisce Éireann's communication with communities and elected representatives, particularly with local councillors, and especially in those areas, whether Cork, Donegal or elsewhere, where we are seeing some of the most significant challenges. There is a solution to that. We need to have a statutory requirement on the utility to engage in a structured manner with elected representatives and local authorities, as well as with these Houses. That is something the Minister could do as a matter of urgency. There are many other issues that I will raise, but I will finish on this. Water is a fundamental human right. It is essential to the well-being of people, families and communities. It must be delivered by a public utility, free at the point of delivery, on the basis of need. We are not there yet. Sinn Féin will continue to make the case for those reforms. The Government is not doing enough, and it is a pity the Minister did not acknowledge that in his remarks.

This motion speaks of failings that are all too well known affecting communities in Donegal and other places. There has been a failure of the Government and Uisce Éireann to deliver basic infrastructure, including in parts of my own constituency in Donegal. In one community, 40 houses have no running water. There are people who rely on wells as a source of water this year. That is a disgrace in 2026, and a dereliction of duty by the Government. Our island communities in Donegal are also well used to being treated as second-class citizens when it comes to water. On Arranmore and Tory Island, water quality is regularly extremely poor. On Gola Island, there is no running water at all. The pipeline was damaged back in July, and Uisce Éireann has still not provided a timeline for when running water will return to the island. I wrote to the Minister last year and wrote to the Minister with responsibility for the Gaeltacht, but they keep on telling me that it is not their responsibility. That is six months that the islanders have been waiting for answers from the Government, yet nothing is forthcoming, not even a plan, not even a date. With regard to sewerage, in my own parish of Gaoth Dobhair, in the heart of the Gaeltacht, we have been waiting for a sewerage scheme for decades. In 2015, I submitted a complaint to the European Commission about the State's failure to deliver a sewerage scheme in Gaoth Dobhair. The Commission took infringement proceedings against the State in response and forced the delivery of a pilot scheme. In phase 1 of the scheme, 50 properties were connected. Over a decade later, we are still waiting for the other phase to commence, and Uisce Éireann tells us it will not happen for years. Wastewater continues to be inadequately treated. There are repeated risks to coastal waters, fisheries, communities and the natural environment that this community depends on. As a consequence, what do we have? We have blocked development. Hotels, social housing and private housing cannot go ahead and local services cannot expand. My colleague talked about accountability for Uisce Éireann. It does not exist. TDs and councillors find it impossible to get answers from Uisce Éireann and to hold it accountable, or even speak to somebody who is dealing with any project. This has to change, and change quickly.

I do not think the model that we currently see with Uisce Éireann, previously Irish Water, is an accident. I think it is by design, given the way that public representatives are treated by that organisation, created by this Government. When I send the Government a parliamentary question, it is ruled out of order because it is a matter for Uisce Éireann. The way it treats public representatives is outrageous. I will give the example of my home area of Buncrana in recent weeks. There was a water supply issue that knocked out the water connection for most of the town. I cannot get to speak to an actual human being to get an update. I have to send an email and wait days for a response. In recent days, there was a boil water notice for most of my town. There are clearly serious problems with the Uisce Éireann infrastructure in my area. I cannot get speaking to a damn human being. I cannot get answers for my constituents nor can the local councillors. I have to send an email. This is outrageous. When something happened many years ago, I would lift the phone and talk to an employee of Donegal County Council. We would have a good conversation and I could get a proper update of where things stood. The Minister has been a public representative for a long time. This has to stop. We need proper accountability and answers for our constituents about what is going on. We have the Eddie Fullerton Dam. I am really proud of it. My predecessor Councillor Eddie Fullerton fought for it. It is a fantastic resource with water for our people. It passes through my town. The water is disconnected and there is a boil water notice when we could be using that water. I cannot get answers to all of these questions from Uisce Éireann. This organisation is not fit for purpose. I believe that is by design rather than by accident. It has to stop and the Minister needs to change it.

I want to agree with Deputy Mac Lochlainn. We all have very similar problems with Uisce Éireann. We are on the front line of dealing with these issues. Communities come to us because they have no way themselves of getting through to Uisce Éireann. They expect that their democratically elected public representatives can get fast information for them. Through no fault of our own – because we try – we cannot. Deputy Mac Lochlainn is right. We send the emails, we get a reply and very often the reply is inadequate but it can take days to come. I want to raise serious concerns regarding the continued failure of Uisce Éireann to address wastewater infrastructure deficits in small coastal rural communities, specifically the village of Bunmahon in County Waterford. Bunmahon is a growing coastal village, a vital local amenity and an important tourist destination yet its wastewater system is wholly inadequate. During winter months, the network regularly surcharges creating pollution risks, threatening public health and damaging the local environment. This is not a new issue. It is long standing, well documented and has been repeatedly raised by Councillor Catherine Burke, a Sinn Féin councillor, but also by Waterford City and County Council itself in email correspondence and letters to Uisce Éireann. Despite this, Bunmahon is again being excluded from Uisce Éireann's small towns and villages growth programme. That decision is deeply disappointing and unacceptable. The council has supplied extensive evidence to Uisce Éireann but gaps in monitoring – which, again, is no fault of the people who live in the village - and a lack of proactive assessment appear to be preventing Bunmahon from being fairly considered for investment. The reality is this: communities like Bunmahon are being held back not because there is no need but because there is no action. When there are deficits in water infrastructure, homes cannot be built, businesses cannot expand and environmental protections are compromised due to what is chronic under investment. I am asking the Minister to examine this issue and, if he can, to come back to me in writing because I have to say any of the responses I have got from Uisce Éireann, as scant as they are, have been wholly inadequate.

There are a number of issues relating to Uisce Éireann. They have been well documented here today. I want to talk about a number of issues in my home county of Galway in both the city and the county. I am talking about certain pieces of infrastructure like wastewater infrastructure. That is basic infrastructure that any developed country should be able to provide for the people living in its cities or county areas. The lack of sufficient wastewater infrastructure is impacting on the delivery of homes in Galway city and county. We also have a situation where sewage flows freely into the sea. That should not be happening in this day and age in Galway county. We also have the issue mentioned earlier by Deputy Doherty. We need to have a plan for islands when it comes to water. There is a belief that our offshore islands will just not have access to water in certain periods of the year. We need a plan. The plan could take some time - I understand that - but if we as public representatives or the people themselves do not know what the long-term plan is, then this problem will continue. I am thinking of the likes of Inis Oírr. Every year, it has srianta uisce with the curtailment of water every single summer. We have had it in Inis Boffin where there was manganese in the water. We need a clear plan to be set out. Finally, we need to ensure there are generators to make sure water is still pumped when we have a storm.

I have two minutes, so I will make three quick points to the Minister but I want to make the general point that when we are talking about water, we should take stock of the picture internationally because there are so many examples of situations where privatisation has led to absolute chaos. We have seen this very clearly in relation to Thames Water. I know that privatisation is not on the agenda but people in Ireland had a lot of concern that the infrastructure for that was being created. We should continue to monitor situations internationally where privatised water systems fail people. We should continue to absorb that into the way we approach water policy. First, on constraint and development. I hope Uisce Éireann officials are listening to this. There is increasingly an issue in Cork city where new developments could potentially come on stream but the inability for them to connect run-off or storm water to the foul drain is leading to potential refusals or refusals. That needs to be addressed because it is not sustainable and could hold back development. Second, I want to flag how, where estates are being completed, there are too often deficits in local authority approaches in terms of ensuring compliance. I can give an example of Gleann Órga in Ballinhassig in Cork where there have been ongoing issues with wastewater management. This was due to somebody who was in the position not having completed the work adequately, leaving residents with the consequences and the local authority not dealing with it adequately. That also needs to be addressed at local authority level. Finally, on the transfer to the new model, a lot of workers were very frustrated at how it was handled and felt the consultation was not adequate. However, even allowing for that, there was a missed opportunity in some local authorities. In Cork City Council, 70 water workers were being moved on. Only two of those went to housing in the middle of a housing crisis. That was not anywhere near good enough. It was a huge missed opportunity and a huge waste.

Along with Deputies Ó Broin, Guirke and Gould, Sinn Féin and I introduced the Water Services (Amendment) Bill last year with the specific aim of holding Uisce Éireann to account in cases of water outages and disruptions in supply. It is good legislation. The Government should enact it. It would mandate Uisce Éireann to have a dedicated response for vulnerable domestic and business customers, have a detailed communication plan for all customers, public representatives and local authorities, including two-hourly updates, provide emergency replacement water within agreed timeframes, and have short-, medium- and long-term plans to address problems. In Meath East, we need urgent investment in wastewater infrastructure in Kells, we need urgent investment in mains water infrastructure in Duleek and we desperately need urgent investment in mains water in Dunboyne. Residents in whole swathes of Dunboyne were without water over Christmas and the new year – no toilets, no showers, no washing machines, no dishwaters, no nothing. Communication with Uisce Éireann is disgraceful. It is completely unacceptable and the Minister needs to address it. The Sinn Féin legislation would help. When Uisce Éireann did answer in relation to Dunboyne, it said low pressure was due to increased demand. This screams about the need for critical infrastructure to be delivered with or before new housing development, of which there is a significant amount in Dunboyne, as the Minister knows. Uisce Éireann also said it has medium- and long-term fixes. That is welcome but it begs the question as to why these were not delivered before obvious problems arose. Uisce Éireann is infuriatingly casual and non-committal in relation to immediate fixes for Dunboyne. It has nothing to say in relation to interim supplies, additional pumping capacity or anything else. Like so much with Uisce Éireann, it is not good enough, it is unacceptable and it has to change. Sinn Féin and I will keep pushing until it does.

The delivery of crucial water infrastructure by Uisce Éireann has been nothing short of a systematic and utter failure. How anyone in this Government can stand here and sing its praises is beyond comprehension. It is an absolute disgrace that, in 2026 in a supposedly First World European state, thousands of families across Carlow and Kilkenny are forced to endure Third World conditions. They pay their taxes in full yet are left with a water infrastructure that belongs in the past. How can the Minister stand over the cartel-like behaviour of Uisce Éireann's contractors? Just five years ago, installing two concrete rings cost between €5,000 and €7,000; today the same contractors charge nearly €40,000. A burst main used to cost €1,600; now it is between €9,000 and €10,000. If they lay one metre of concrete, they get paid for seven. They have vans driving around supposedly looking for leaks; in reality, it is a game of hide and seek for €1,600 per day. I am getting reports of contractors communicating with each other to drive up quotes as much as possible. As I said, it is cartel-like behaviour. The list goes on and on. What is happening is nothing short of daylight robbery. It is theft of taxpayers' money. We must be clear in the Dáil today that what these contractors are getting away with is criminal. The conduct of and absence of accountability for Uisce Éireann and its handing out of contracts are a scandal waiting to break. As is typical of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael when it comes to public money, they squander and waste it, with little accountability until a scandal finally forces their hand. There needs to be a full review carried out into these contractors and the millions being squandered.

I will stick to two areas, namely, accountability and communication. On a rating from one to ten, both of them are one. There have been ten years of a boil water notice in Whitegate, east Cork, with diabolical communications, even with me as a public representative. Some other speakers have mentioned that already. There is zero accountability and no information any time you can actually get an email to Uisce Éireann, even one offering suggestions. Imagine people being on a boil water notice for ten years, including people with medical conditions and complex needs, without an ounce of compensation. We tried to sue the company. I wrote to every constituent to say they could claim €30. We got zero accountability. Ten days would be the average waiting time for someone who reports a leak. That is if they can get through to Uisce Éireann. The Acting Chairman, Deputy Aindrias Moynihan, was a county councillor at the time of one of the county development plans. Uisce Éireann, then Irish Water, told Cork County Council it would not develop Monard in Cork because it refused to put in water and sewage. That is going back a long time. It is a dictatorship. The company has rules of its own. Terence Coskeran was a gentleman in Tipperary who came to the petitions committee in the last term after dealing for ten years with Uisce Éireann, which would not take over his estate of six houses. Tipperary County Council was absolutely amazing. The memorandum of understanding was signed but then Uisce Éireann came along and would not recognise it. It was the first time we had the power to call Uisce Éireann into the petitions committee. Within ten days, after nearly ten years of conflict, that gentleman's water solutions were sorted. It is the only way to bring these matters to justice. Uisce Éireann is a money pit, is not fit for purpose and gives us no accountability, even in communications. It definitely needs to be pulled in and rigorously investigated. We need accountability on this.

Hear, hear.

Uisce Éireann is out of control and appears to be answerable to nobody. If the public was made fully aware of the loss of water through leaks across the country, it would be astonished. As a councillor in the past and as a TD since I was elected to this august House, I have had to deal with Irish Water on a number of issues. One leak that comes to mind was where a pipe in Wexford town was losing 10,000 litres of water per hour. After years of contact with Uisce Éireann, it was resolved - but only after years. I dealt with another single pipe in Coolballow, Wexford town, that had 52 leaks in 18 months, with constant patching after patching. There were years of campaigning before the pipe was replaced. Nothing has changed. Twenty-six years ago, the late councillor Paddy Nolan in Wexford town raised the issue of raw sewage leaking from a large pipe in his home area of Maudlintown. It is still leaking raw sewage today. It has never been touched and no attempt has been made to resolve it. These are just a couple of examples in a small area, so Deputies can imagine the scale of the problem out there. Then we have the issue of hard water for consumers in Wexford town and areas south of it. People are being forced to pay huge sums to treat the water and to replace the appliances that are constantly being damaged, including kettles, showers, dishwashers and washing machines. The whole area of connection charges is astounding. Some instances I have dealt with over the years border on criminal. Blackwater GAA club faced a demand for €46,000 to connect to a fire hydrant. Ballagh Boxing Club, with 25 members, was asked for €19,000 for a water connection to its modular build unit. Community groups doing amazing work are getting pinned to the canvas by a State utility company. Only highlighting by myself and others got these issues somewhat resolved. However, when the owner of a new single house built in the heart of Wexford town was forced to pay €33,000 for a single connection for a single one-off house, Uisce Éireann stood firm in its ridiculous demands. Community groups and citizens are being screwed by Uisce Éireann because of the lack of investment by this and previous Governments.

I was sad to see the senior Minister leave but the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, knows full well what I will say. It is over for him and the senior Minister when it comes to providing housing and developing the level of housing required in this country. I refer to what I predicted on 27 April 2012 in this very House. I encourage the Minister of State to go back and look at the speech. It still stands. All the investment the Minister of State likes will not catch up. Going from €300 million to €1.4 billion or even now, as the senior Minister said, €11.7 billion will be great for a government in two terms' time but it is over for this Government because the lead time is five to seven years. If you do not have the infrastructure, you cannot build the houses. It is like someone trying to perform operations without oxygen or blood. It is impossible. This House, previous Governments, bad politics and short-termism have ensured we have the housing crisis we have today and that the young and not so young people of Ireland cannot afford housing. We cannot build it because politics has failed, this Chamber has failed, the Minister of State's Governments have failed and his party has failed. It is as simple as that. We have never put in the investment we require. In my town of Nenagh, we have a project of 1,000 houses which I helped to be built. The project for wastewater has been pushed back for one year to 18 months to be profiled. Tipperary County Council was treated disgracefully by not being told this was being profiled and pushed back. The reason it was profiled and pushed back was there was not the investment to actually do it. Where we as a country require infrastructure for housing, we will develop that infrastructure but it will be too late for this Government because of the decisions made by past Governments not to invest in what was right. In this Chamber, politics has failed the people of Ireland. It has failed the young people of Ireland who needed that foresight and needed infrastructure to be put in place to provide the houses they require - social, affordable and private - which will not be in place because of bad decision-making and bad politics in this bloody Chamber.

I thank the Deputies for bringing forward this motion. It is an extremely important one. I will focus on the small towns and villages programme. On 6 November last, Uisce Éireann appeared before the Committee of Public Accounts and stated that, in revenue control 3, €98 million was allocated to that programme. This began 243 projects across the country, seven of them in Cork. Does the Minister of State know how many of these have been completed since 2022? Four have been completed. The fact it takes seven to ten years to deliver a wastewater treatment plant is staggering. I am no expert, but it is staggering. The local authorities were asked at that time to fill in a priority list for their own council. Cork County Council has responsibility for a village in my constituency, Carrignavar, which is No. 13 on the list. To be fair to the local authority, it could choose village after village for the programme. I was informed at the Committee of Public Accounts that the small towns and villages programme was predicated on growth. To me, that does not make sense and I will tell the House why. Growth in an area is based on the building of housing in line with infrastructure from Government. As my colleague said, if we do not have the infrastructure, we cannot build the houses. I met a group of residents in Carrignavar a number of months ago. It is a great village. It has a new primary school and it is to be hoped there will be an extension to the secondary school, along with a chosen location for a new special school. It has huge potential to grow, but it cannot. Growth is the underlying issue for Carrignavar. As I said, if we do not have the infrastructure, we cannot grow. Housing, as the Minister of State knows, is the generational issue of our time. Housing cannot be built in Carrignavar because of the inability of Uisce Éireann to build infrastructure. Only four out of 243 projects have been completed through the small town and villages programme. It is a failed programme.

I thank Deputy Collins for initiating this debate. He has pushed hard for it over the past number of weeks in the Business Committee. A number of things about Uisce Éireann need to change and change utterly. One is the culture of the organisation, which has shifted hugely in the past four years, and I will outline two examples to illustrate that. One relates to my constituency and the Swords wastewater treatment plant. There have been a number of major issues which have affected many residents. In late 2024, I requested a site visit at the wastewater treatment plant with the management of the plant, local authority workers and key people from the community. I received a response three months later stating that Uisce Éireann does not do site visits. That is absolute nonsense. How do I know? I know because it carried out such visits with me in that wastewater treatment plan in previous years. What has changed? In Knocksedan Demesne, an estate in Swords where a new phase is being built, we cannot get the houses connected. I contacted Uisce Éireann on 21 March 2025 and did not receive a full answer until 30 October 2025 to a question regarding new houses being connected, which is apparently a key priority of the Government. The issue has still not been resolved as of 14 January 2026. I received a response in October because there are good people in Uisce Éireann who are trying to work hard and resolve issues, but the culture has shifted to a point where it is not meeting the needs of the citizen. Regarding culture, can we listen to local authority water services workers who have the expertise on the ground? Uisce Éireann is not doing that. I have a list of issues where local authorities have identified a problem and Uisce Éireann has said they are wrong and it is not that problem but instead another one which cannot be resolved. A large multinational stakeholder is saying something else. When we get to the root of the issue, and spend lots of time and waste lots of energy, it turns out the local authority worker with expertise has been right every single time. We need to listen to the council workers who have the expertise, change the culture in Uisce Éireann and make it accountable to the Irish citizen and taxpayer and this House.

I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward the motion. Tá a lán rudaí sa tairiscint that I am go maith with and I think are good. It is important to highlight the issues that have been raised. I am not in agreement with a number of points towards the end of the motion, but broadly it is important. The fundamental questions we need to address are why Uisce Éireann is not working for people, why it is not providing the services and infrastructure that are needed to ensure housing is being delivered and, fundamentally, why it is not sufficiently addressing issues of leakage and poor water quality we know exist in respect of drinking water. People are still living with this issue across the country. There is also the question of the quality of water in our rivers and seas in respect of wastewater. As someone who swims regularly in Dublin Bay, even at the moment when it is freezing, after it rains we can see it is covered in scum. We know there are issues with capacity in the Ringsend treatment plant. We have capacity problems across the country in terms of the delivery of water and wastewater services and, fundamentally, housing. I do not believe that the Government fully takes on board the extent of the housing emergency we are in. I encourage the Minister of State to look at the website onemillionhomes.ie. I do not know whether he has come across it yet. Its information is based on CSO data. It states that there are 1.3 million people aged between 18 and 44 who are waiting to own their home but are instead stuck renting or living at home. The analysis on the website points out that people would be waiting a thousand years in Ballymun, in my constituency, to get keys to a home. In other places around the country, such as Ballyjamesduff in County Cavan, people will wait a hundred years to get the keys to their own home, as will people in Swinford, County Mayo. The website goes through town after town and place after place across the country where there is a generation aged between 18 and 44 who have no prospect of owning a home of their own, renting or living in a social home under the current housing delivery. The reality is that there have been eight months of consecutive decline in construction in the residential sector. This does not involve just the Minister and Minister of State. They are the current Ministers, but the seeds of this problem were laid decades ago. Over the past 20 to 40 years, we have followed a housing policy, and a policy more generally, of privatisation, relying on the market and not delivering and developing public capacity. It is incredible that Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil say they are giving Uisce Éireann the funding it needs given that they denied it when it was actually needed and the work could have been done and investment provided. We are playing catch-up in terms of the infrastructure that is needed. Last year, we said Uisce Éireann needed €2 billion to get going. The Minister, Deputy Harris, said the Government was not sure and needed agreements, and the decision was delayed. I read the infrastructure report. One of the things identified in it, in terms of delays in delivery, did not involve planning, judicial reviews or other issues but, rather, the Government and State and the way they operate. The barriers are a lack of dedicated funding, which is still insufficient, and the systems in place to approve projects. The Minister of State is shaking his head. I assume he has read the infrastructure report.

Of course I have read it.

It states very clearly that some of the key structural barriers to delivering infrastructure are Government approval of projects, the time it takes and the funding allocated. It is very clear that the systems the Government has set up are not delivering infrastructure quickly enough. That is the responsibility of the Government. The Minister of State can shake his head, but it is the Government's responsibility. It is a system that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have set up for decades. In terms of Uisce Éireann, there is an issue that these parties broadly do not believe in public utilities. It is about the market. Therefore, Uisce Éireann is left as a kind of commercial body that should deliver key public infrastructure, but does not have sufficient funding, as identified in the motion, to deal with leaks, water being of sufficient quality and infrastructure not being delivered for housing. It is not doing that now and there is no prospect of it doing so sufficiently. The frustrating aspect of this is that the Government has given billions away to developers, investor funds and fast food chains. Yet, our public infrastructure, which needs investment, is not given sufficient investment to ensure it addresses these problems in a reasonable timeframe. The timeframes set out are not reasonable. That is why we need a step-change in how we invest in our public water and wastewater infrastructure. I will raise a case related to infrastructure, specifically the fact that people who are trying to get services are not getting them. Niamh and her mother Petria have been without heating since before September 2025 and are waiting on repairs. Niamh first flagged this issue in my office in October of last year. Her mother is 84 years of age. They have been without heating and a functioning boiler. They were advised by workers who inspected the boiler that it needed to be replaced rather than repaired. I wrote to the SEAI, the Minister for Social Protection and Dublin City Council raising this issue. The SEAI provided some information about grants and warmer homes and warned about lengthy waiting times. However, it said it will take potentially 14 months from the date of application to the date of delivery. These kinds of waiting times for water and heat are not acceptable. It is a fundamental failure of our State that people are left freezing in their homes. I raise this case because I would like the Minister of State to take it up and see what he can do about it. I wrote to the community welfare officer in Finglas to follow up on the case. Niamh and Petria are waiting for this and I am concerned for their welfare. This is just one of many examples where the Government talks about economic growth in this country and the Taoiseach gets up in the Dáil and says the Opposition never talks about all of the great things the Government is doing when that is not the reality for too many people in this country. I was just in the audiovisual room listening to people with disabilities who cannot afford to heat their homes. These issues are connected because we have not developed a State that has funded our public services, including Uisce Éireann, city councils and county councils. This issue is directly connected to the motion because we have a State that does not deliver our public-----

It is some stretch.

The Minister of State can argue it is a stretch but-----

We are on Irish Water infrastructure, a Theachta.

Yes, we are on water infrastructure and this relates directly to it. Why do we not invest sufficiently in our water infrastructure and why do we have these problems? It is not because Uisce Éireann is not doing all that it can because it is doing some work. It is not about needing to get developers in to do the work. The problem is we have a State that does not believe in public services and public utilities and is actually privatising them. I spoke to Irish Water as well and it is still doing public private partnerships and outsourcing the delivery and management of wastewater infrastructure to the private sector. This relates directly to the motion because it is a question on what type of public utilities and public infrastructure we are developing. I believe, and the evidence shows, that we are still not fully developing a public water and wastewater infrastructure that meets the needs of the economy and society. This connects back to a Government and to political parties that are still broadly neoliberal and centre right. They have an attitude towards public services that, while they will invest in them, they will not invest sufficiently to ensure people's needs are met. They still believe the market and private sector should be in there making profit where they can.

Irish Water is not fit for purpose. It should never have been established and it should now be abolished. It is hiding from the public. It has no public offices. It refuses to meet elected representatives in open, democratic forums like county council meetings. Consumers cannot meet any Irish Water official face to face. Of course, they can report a problem to a call centre. They may get a report back in a week, a month or maybe not at all. Irish Water has contempt for consumers and councillors alike. It refuses to advise consumers of planned outages. The ESB can do it but Irish Water refuses to do it. Boil water notices are almost endemic in the system. In the past 12 months, there have been continuous boil water notices across south Tipperary, right from the Limerick border to the Kilkenny border. These have affected the towns of Tipperary, Ardfinnan, Cahir, Cashel, Clonmel and Carrick-on-Suir, lasting for two, three and even six months at a time. This is due to Irish Water's failure to have full-time caretakers at treatment plants, the lack of maintenance at those plants and the failure to provide them with alarm systems. There are also huge delays in dealing with burst water mains, particularly at weekends when Irish Water is reluctant to call out staff. Customers are left without water for days on end. Irish Water should be abolished and water and wastewater services returned to county councils. Irish Water proposes and is planning to bring hard water into the town of Clonmel. This has already caused huge problems and costs to families on the northern side of the town. Householders are forced to regularly replace all white goods, from washing machines and dishwashers to electric kettles and showers. They have had to install water softeners at significant installation and running costs. This is a huge issue for residents. Irish Water refuses to treat hard water at source. Irish Water's proposal to bring water from the Parteen Basin on the Shannon to Dublin defies logic. It is a project which, from Irish Water's own projections, will cost between €4.5 billion and €6 billion. At least 33% of water in the Dublin area is lost through leaky pipes. The net effect of this proposal is that one third of the water coming to Dublin will be lost at a cost of between €1.5 billion and €2 billion annually. When will we have the anti-privatisation water referendum? This was promised as far back as 2016 and we have not seen it yet. We need a date for that referendum.

I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this motion. We have a large number of issues in Donegal with water. It is probably the biggest issue outside of defective concrete. Many areas lack waterworks and engineers. They face significant issues, such as pipe bursts and lack of proper infrastructure. We have issues and outages reported throughout Inishowen, west Donegal, Bundoran, Stranorlar, Ballybofey, Fanad, Pettigo, Ballyshannon and Letterkenny. Nearly 100,000 people are affected by this. The Slavery water treatment plant in Buncrana has consistently experienced issues over the last year, with residents left without water for days at a time. In the past three months, they have lost water for nearly a week. Water tankers had to be dispersed onto the streets. Before Christmas, a burst water main in north Inishowen and another burst water main in Dunfanaghy caused major disruption. People in the Milford-Ramelton area have been asked to conserve water for nearly two years. There is a total hosepipe in place for five months of the year. It is basically a drought. In a place where it is raining all the time, we are facing water shortages through lack of maintenance. Malin Head had water shortages lasting for days. Residents and business owners were forced to close their businesses because they could not provide running water. The long-term impact of this on tourism in Donegal has been absolutely catastrophic. Despite ongoing issues, Uisce Éireann fails every time to communicate with public representatives. We have said this from day one. Like many other TDs, my experience of Uisce Éireann is that its communication skills are excruciatingly poor. The company cannot be contacted. People are left without water. Children are left without running water in their houses for days at a time. It is ridiculous. There is also the issue of public water supply to the islands. I am from Arranmore Island where there are issues with water. A constituent of mine on Gola Island has not had a drop of water in her house since May and she depends on people bringing water to her. This is absolutely unacceptable. Residents deserve basic services and they are not getting them. There is a total dereliction of duty, as far as I am concerned. There is no responsibility or accountability, and that is constant. The tourism season is destroyed in north Inishowen when the water is out. Nobody comes. Irish Water needs to inform residents of the current status of works and provide realistic timelines so that we know and can plan ahead. There is a huge disconnect between Uisce Éireann and the communities it serves, and it needs to be addressed. Communities have serious concerns regarding Uisce Éireann's services. It is clear there is an over-reliance on private contractors. High costs include senior salaries. There are clearly insufficient resources. The reality is that we must retain the skillsets of the workers to keep on moving. We have skillsets and workers who are being abandoned by Uisce Éireann. They are county council workers, and they deserve all the help they can get to keep the water running in County Donegal.

I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this important motion on Irish Water. It has identified many of the problems, which I think we all agree on. I have to say, however, that I radically disagree with the conclusions it draws about what needs to be done. Ultimately, its motion ends up being a blueprint for the further privatisation of water services, which is the problem, not the solution. On the things we do agree on, however, the lack of adequate infrastructure to build the houses we need is absolutely outrageous. We cannot address the housing crisis unless we provide the water infrastructure. In my area, we have been calling this out on big publicly-owned sites for years. Finally, they have started to get moving on them but there is a big delay with publicly-owned sites in areas like Rathmichael and the Old Conna Road - big publicly-owned sites for public housing with no water infrastructure put in. It takes years for that to happen. In Dublin Bay, no swim notices regularly go up. Why? It is because of a decrepit Victorian infrastructure that was identified decades ago where surface water, when it rains heavily, mixes with sewage. The sewage goes straight into Dublin Bay, so people are swimming in Dublin Bay in raw sewage. Again, this has been identified for decades. It is still not dealt with in terms of the problems at Poolbeg, which is massively under capacity for a growing population in the urban centre. There is a lack of communication from Irish Water when problems arise with leaks and boil water notices. We could go through the list. The playbook for the privatisation of water services, or any service, is to run it down so it does not work and prove that it does not work with lots of timelines. Where have we seen this before? We have seen it with special needs and so on, when people say we have to have a six-month timeline during which the resources are not provided and the teachers and workers are not provided. This is why I have the problem with the motion put forward by Independent Ireland. It does not mention extra money. We were against the setting up of Irish Water because we believed it was backdoor privatisation of local authorities that have the expertise and so on. It does not mention the extra money that is needed. Irish Water said it only has enough money to provide the infrastructure for 30,000 and not 60,000 houses. There is no extra money and the motion before us does not even mention extra money. What the motion does say is that if Irish Water cannot deliver, we should bring in private developers to do it. No, we should not. Part of the problem with Irish Water is that it is already backdoor privatisation. If we look at half the work that Irish Water does, we will see it is private companies doing it - GMC and other contractors. The problem is we need a public system. We are losing the expertise we have in the local authorities, namely, the expertise of the local authority workers. What we need is more public investment to provide the infrastructure necessary for water, not the privatisation of blue gold, and water is the blue gold of the 21st century. There are people who are out to make profits from a resource where the infrastructure is not provided properly. That is what we actually need, not privatisation. Following water charges campaign, which was about defeating the plans for the privatisation of water, we got a commitment that there would be a referendum to keep the water infrastructure in public ownership. Where is that referendum?

The motion this morning from Independent Ireland raises valid concerns about Ireland's water and wastewater infrastructure, reflecting ongoing challenges in a system that has historically suffered from underinvestment and ageing assets. Certainly, it is the case that persistent delays block housing, public health, economy and compliance, as the motion notes. I acknowledge also that the proposed measures that are put forward as solutions are quite positive and would certainly help the situation. Some of them may already be in place or under active implementation but it is vital that we do not continue with what is essentially an impractical regulatory and operational framework. The solutions are there. They just need to be acted upon. It is the action that is the problem and not the theoretical framework. What I am concerned about, and want to raise it this morning, is that it has come to my attention that Irish Water has issued a directive to its staff telling them that they are no longer allowed to collaborate or work with local authorities. That concerns me greatly because we know how it works with different agencies when they are not all joined up or working together and there is no collaboration. Therefore, I want to call on Irish Water to have a look at that and make sure it does continue to collaborate as much as possible with local authorities when local issues arise because when local issues arise, we need local solutions and we need everyone working together, whether they are local authority or Irish Water. I want to raise ongoing sewerage issues that have gone on for years in Harbour Road, Banagher, County Offaly. I do hope that Irish Water will address this urgently because it has gone on for years, and it is totally unacceptable.

I thank Independent Ireland for bringing forward this very important motion today. I want to talk about Kenmare first of all. Two housing applications have been held up for the past number of months. They were asked to get a letter from Irish Water to say that it would have water to supply the 170 houses to be built. They cannot get the letter from Irish Water. The time is running out and they will have to pull their applications. This is for 170 houses. No house has been built in Kenmare since 2006 some 20 years ago. Kenmare is surrounded by mountains and lakes. It is surrounded by water. We have more water than any other part of Ireland and just cannot get it into a pump. People are talking about taking water from the River Shannon and bringing it to Dublin. The way we are going in Kenmare anyway, it will take 250 years before the people in Dublin will see one drop of water out of the Shannon unless they drive down and take a bucket of water out of it themselves. Kerry County Council has been trying for many years, unsuccessfully, to get water for Kenmare. We have spent €30 million on a treatment plant. We have a new water plant there and yet we have no water to put into the pipes in Kenmare. I am asking the Minister of State to look at this again. I have asked the Taoiseach about it in this Chamber before. There is just one other thing. There are two housing estates in Aghadoe - Birch Hill and Old Killarney Village - looking down on the lakes of Killarney. They are waiting for their treatment plant to be replaced. It has been taken charge of by the council yet Irish Water and Kerry County Council will not or have not decided what they are doing with the €1 million they have got from the Department. Neither will not perform, or they will not perform together, to provide a new treatment plant for these two estates. This has been going on for six years.

We have been informed that Irish Water is to receive the biggest investment in public infrastructure in the history of the State. That is obviously very welcome. I have been calling for many years, as a councillor and since being elected as a TD for Kerry, for constructed wetlands to be built in our towns and villages. Over 40 of our villages in Kerry are unsewered. Many more are at capacity. Constructed wetlands are quick and efficient and are a much cheaper and easy way to install a system of treating wastewater without the prolonged time of planning and construction. I believe they are the way to go. In the more populated areas, we can put in two or three constructed wetlands. They are environmentally friendly and are one way of sorting our housing crisis in the medium term. I mentioned there are 40 villages unsewered. In Beaufort, for example, there was €6 million announced for the Beaufort sewerage scheme over two years ago. That was increased recently to €7 million. I have been informed by Irish Water that it will take another seven years before that is up and running. It is far too long. Constructed wetlands are the way to go. I mentioned that some of them are at capacity. My village, Glenbeigh, is at capacity. We recently opened the first completed section of the south Kerry greenway. Huge numbers are using it, which is great to see. Glenbeigh is not greenway-ready, however. I had two planning clients seeking to build hotels specifically for the greenway but they will not get planning permission because there is no treatment system there. There are many such villages across the county, such as Castlegregory, Portmagee, Scartaglen and Cromane. I could go on forever listing them. We need to start investing. Is it a matter for the local authority to apply to the Government or Uisce Éireann for funding for these constructed wetlands or will a specific scheme be announced by Irish Water and invitations then put out?

Labhair mé faoin ábhar seo sa Teach seo. I understand Uisce Éireann has a huge body of work but it is failing on infrastructure. We have reviewed the judicial review system which will make it much easier for people to have critical infrastructure. Currently, in Dublin, especially in my area of Dublin Bay North, there is a huge issue where we see drone footage of E. coli and human waste going into the bay. I have seen other people using methods to clean it. I would love that to be done in north Dublin. Another thing I wish to ask about is why Irish Water will not allow its tanks to be used for a sprinkler system, particularly in student accommodation. It is a simple issue. It is bureaucratic issue of legislation that Uisce Éireann is following but it is destroying the construction industry and delaying builds. In Dublin Bay, residents in Mask Avenue, Coolock, have contacted my office for weeks. I eventually got in contact with Uisce Éireann, which said its workers were out in that area. From speaking to residents, however, they were not. The accountability is not there. This system cannot cope. I thank Lauren in Uisce Éireann who has been very helpful on this issue, which is currently in the process of being resolved. Residents not having drinking water is not acceptable. The unaccountability of civil servants, State bodies or semi-State bodies needs to be reviewed. There is also a serious issue with communication, which Members from all sides of the House have raised today. People are not being informed clearly or quickly when incidents occur. We cannot continue to talk about delivering housing without facing the reality that housing and water infrastructure go hand in hand. I heard a lot of people talking about this today. If we do not invest urgently in the wastewater treatment plant in Dublin, network capacity and storm resilience, we are not going to meet our housing targets in the term of this Government. Uisce Éireann needs to be properly resourced. We are throwing money at it but there needs to be accountability for the money we are throwing at it.

There are two issues I wish to raise with the Minister of State on Irish Water infrastructure delivery. The first issue relates to connection fees and the second relates to pollution in waterways. Irish Water has a fee structure for connections that fails to take into account that community groups have to fundraise and get grants from Government and various sources to build community services. They are still treated as commercial entities when it comes to making a connection to water and sewerage. In Rylane, for example, we are building a community centre. The community group has been very active in fundraising. I am pleased the State and the Department have been able to provide €1.8 million in grants for the project. Irish Water is charging over €30,000 to connect to drinking and wastewater. Surely, Irish Water should recognise that these are not commercial entities. They are providing public services to communities and that should be reflected in the connection fee. Second, farmers are doing considerable work in improving water quality and putting in place infrastructure. They have on-site inspections from the council and various different authorities. It is right that there are inspections so that if there is a problem, it can be quickly dealt with. The same standards should be applied across the board to all polluters. If that polluter is Irish Water, it should be expected to deliver infrastructure just as quickly and prevent the pollution. For example, in Ballingarry, Irish Water is polluting the River Lee. Farther along, Irish Water is polluting the River Bandon at Dunmanway. All pollution should be treated equally. Uisce Éireann should be expected to deliver infrastructure as quickly as farmers are, for example.

As it is my first time speaking after the Christmas break, I wish all Deputies a happy new year and a productive year. I thank everyone who has contributed today to what is a very important debate on water services. Our water infrastructure is part of our shared fabric as a society and it is rightly the subject of extensive democratic scrutiny both from the Oireachtas and our regulatory bodies. Since the establishment of Uisce Éireann, significant improvements have been made in the delivery of water services. Hundreds of water and wastewater treatment plants have been upgraded along with the installation of thousands of kilometres of new or rehabilitated water mains. National leakage rates have been reduced and the overall quality of drinking water remains very high. There is, of course, more work to do and the sustained and increasing funding and support provided by the Government will enable Uisce Éireann to make continued progress in the time ahead. To that end, the Government policy paper on water sector transformation sets the vision for water services based on the full integration of water services provided by 31 local authorities into one national authority. Moving the operation and control of public water services from local authorities to direct Uisce Éireann responsibility represents one of the largest public sector reform programmes in recent years. It involves numerous facilities around the country and over 3,000 local authority workers, both full- and part-time workers. I wish to take this opportunity, as Minister of State, to acknowledge each and every one of those workers for the significant work they do every single day of the week. Significant progress has been made in transforming the water sector and this transformation is due to be completed at the end of this year. The Government recognises that our water and wastewater networks require ongoing and sustained investment to bring these up to the required standard of treatment to deal with population growth and adapt to the impacts of climate change. We are dealing with a legacy of underinvestment in water services and infrastructure in Ireland. I think everyone in this Chamber - if they really want to knowledge it - will acknowledge that there were huge discrepancies in the performance of local authorities in the area of water and wastewater when it came to investment. Therefore, significant remedial work is necessary that will take a number of years and investment cycles to fully resolve. The updated national development plan provides unprecedented investment of €12.2 billion to the water sector, €11.7 billion of which is earmarked to support Uisce Éireann to meet the ambitious targets in terms of compliance and ensuring the significant uplift in housing delivery our country requires. Under the national development plan, Uisce Éireann has allocated €1.7 billion for a new additional growth programme that will support accelerated housing delivery. Uisce Éireann has identified 71 settlements across Ireland for additional investment where the existing capacity of treatment plants can support significant development in the short term. The selection of these 71 settlements took account of the national planning framework, the regional, spatial and economic strategies, county development plans and local area plans. In addition, Uisce Éireann consulted with the development community, the LDA, the LGMA housing unit and other housing bodies. The progression of these and other projects has to be delivered in a quicker and more efficient timeframe, as many Deputies have rightly pointed out here today. In acknowledgement that Uisce Éireann cannot meet all the housing capacity requirements on its own, the Government has recently approved a new developer-led infrastructure initiative. This represents a significant and pragmatic step forward by ensuring that wastewater infrastructure does not become a barrier to delivering much-needed housing, particularly in small towns and villages in rural areas. This initiative introduces a clear partnership model that will allow developers to deliver wastewater infrastructure to Uisce Éireann standards. Uisce Éireann will then secure regulatory compliance by taking the assets into public ownership for long-term operation and maintenance. This initiative provides certainty for developers, protects environmental standards and avoids the legacy risks associated with earlier approaches to developer-led infrastructure. The developer-led infrastructure initiative will help unlock housing in areas previously constrained by wastewater capacity and support balanced regional development. Finding and fixing leaks is difficult and resource-intensive work. Investment of over €2 billion by Uisce Éireann over the past ten years has meant significant progress, with national leakage rates coming down from 48% in 2014 to 36% in 2024. Of course there is more work to be done in this area and Uisce Éireann has a plan to do it by focusing on the areas experiencing water shortages, and higher demand areas as a targeted focus. The organisation is embarking on some of the largest infrastructure projects ever undertaken in Ireland to meet future growth and societal needs. Some Deputies have referenced some of those in their contributions. The water supply project eastern and midlands region is a generational project and will be one of the largest ever undertaken. It will deliver a safe, secure and sustainable source of water supply to the eastern and midlands region. It will achieve this by bringing treated water from the Parteen Basin in County Tipperary to Peamount in Dublin. The pipeline will have capacity for off-takes along the route in Tipperary, Offaly and Westmeath. It will also enable supplies serving Dublin to be redirected back locally in Carlow, Wicklow, Meath and Louth, bringing benefits to the Dublin region and the wider eastern and midlands regions. The delivery of this generational project is critical to sustainable economic growth, enabling housing delivery and attracting investment to support Ireland's growing population for the next 30 years and beyond. In tandem with the water supply project, the greater Dublin drainage project, GDD, is critical to facilitate growth in the greater Dublin area. The new wastewater treatment plant will be situated in the southern fringes of Fingal, immediately outside the M50 motorway in Dublin, and will serve north Dublin and parts of the surrounding counties of Kildare and Meath. The GDD will provide the additional treatment and network capacity to support the long-term sustainable growth of the greater Dublin region and ensure that Ireland continues to meet our objectives under European law. Beyond the statutory regulators, Uisce Éireann is also subject to rigorous financial scrutiny by way of a dual audit from the Controller and Auditor General and by commercial auditors, as well as being accountable to the Committee of Public Accounts. In terms of communication and public engagement, Uisce Éireann maintains contact with a diverse range of large groups of customers and community stakeholders through a range of channels on a daily basis. I accept that many of the comments of Members here today have focused on inadequate communications. Notwithstanding that Uisce Éireann has responded to more than 100,000 queries directly over the last ten years to 1,100 elected representatives, it is clear that the focus from Deputies here has been in relation to the timely response to those queries. That is something I will take up with Uisce Éireann management. While the Government does have full confidence in Uisce Éireann to deliver improved and strengthened water infrastructure through the NDP and beyond, it is not without criticism, especially when it comes to timelines afforded to the development sector and when it comes to pre-connection and connection agreements. This is an area that I have repeatedly called out myself and it needs a significant additional focus and a determined effort by Uisce Éireann. I make that point again here on the floor of the Dáil. As a Minister of State representing the Government I am confident that with the strong backing we are providing the organisation it can deliver a stronger and more resilient water and wastewater service that meets the needs of our current and future customers in the years ahead.

As the Minister of State heard from each and every person who made a contribution here, accountability and communication are a massive issue with Uisce Éireann. That is the message that must go back from here. I know that People Before Profit had issues, as expressed by Deputy Boyd Barrett, but I do not see any amendment from its Deputies to this motion. They could have put in amendments. Anyway, that is another story and that is their choice. Looking at the Government's amendment, one would wonder whether we are even talking about the same issue. Our motion describes infrastructure failure. The amendment avoids that reality and instead lists the scale of operations. We say that delays block housing and economic activity while they claim investment will support housing delivery, as if no delays exist. We highlight repeated failures while they cite progress. We criticise centralisation while they defend it. We warn of environmental risk but they talk about future improvements. We call leakage a crisis and they say it is improving. Let us deal in facts. In November 2025 the Commission for Regulation of Utilities fined Uisce Éireann €20 million for failing to meet leakage reduction targets. It saved 90 million litres instead of the 176 million litres required. That is not progress. That is a failure with a penalty. Yet, in the same year the Exchequer allocated over €2.2 billion to Uisce Éireann. Communities like Adrigole, Shannonvale, Ballydehob, Goleen, Rosscarbery and Dunmanway still face outages, sewage spills and planning bans. Funding without accountability is not delivery; it is drift. Our motion demands enforceable timelines, transparent schedules, community engagement, and performance-linked funding. The Government's amendment offers none of that. It offers words, not guarantees. For far too long people have endured broken promises and short-term fixes. Today we can end that cycle. I ask the Minister of State to support this motion and stop putting in an amendment to try to mess it up and kick the can down the road. He should send a clear message that accountability in water services is not optional; it is essential. That is what I am asking in the motion and this is what Deputy O'Flynn has spoken about. From 2025 to 2029 it is expected that this Government will be giving at least €16.9 billion to Irish Water. Why in the name of God is there nothing built into that funding to make sure there is going to be accountability and communication? I am going to another public meeting this weekend back down in Adrigole in west Cork. I went to one two months ago also. I am no further ahead today than I was two months ago. We have a Minister of State going to that meeting as well. He might have some progress for us. Certainly we were all to work together and yet we have got no further with the action group. We were without water over Christmas. The area was 15 times without water, including over Christmas. It is not a joke. It is being dealt with like a joke by Uisce Éireann. It gives us a generic reply but that is not accountability. That is not communication. It is a disgrace. That is what it is, pure and simple. Uisce Éireann will be funded with €16.9 billion and instead of supporting this motion and moving it in the right direction the Minister of State is putting in an amendment just to take it off the rails, but we will not accept that amendment as such. I will name a few of the issues that we have down in my own constituency. How many more have spoken today about their own constituencies and the crises that they are in? Councillor Danny Collins represents the Bantry-Schull-Castletownbere electoral area. In the Beach Road area 1.5 km of pipe has needed to be replaced for the last number of years. There were 70 breaks in that local community. I mentioned Adrigole several times today. There were 15 breaks, with one over Christmas. Again, there was no accountability, no reply, no indication of when that is going to be resolved, with no date or anything given to the local community. There is nothing other than Uisce Éireann is sympathetic and there was a dry summer and there is wet weather and all this nonsensical rubbish that comes back to us. In Castletownbere they are talking about bringing in water. I heard Deputy Healy-Rae talking about bringing water from Shannon to Kenmare a while ago. Talk about the nonsense that we have to listen to in this world. They are talking about bringing water to Castletownbere from Inniscarra. In the name of God almighty are they out of their minds? Are these people out of their minds? Is someone in China making these decisions? Certainly no one in Ireland could even come up with that. If a child came up with that, honest to God you would have to teach him a small bit of lessons. Until the issue is resolved in Castletownbere people cannot get planning permission. Young people who want to get off and get a start in their lives and in their communities are being ruined by Uisce Éireann. This is being aided and abetted by this Government. This is what it boils down to. If the Government is just going to stand by, what can Councillor Danny Collins tell the people in Kealkill who want to build in their community but cannot do so because the wastewater treatment plant there is at capacity? They cannot build. That is that for them. Park the business. We move then to Councillor Daniel Sexton of Independent Ireland. What can he do for the people of Shannonvale and Ballinascarty who have no water? They have raw sewage bleeding out of the bloody tanks into a local community ground that was given to the community. This has been going on for 27 or 28 years. Uisce Éireann got fined last year because the EPA decided to wake up one year out of the 28. Imagine that they also were without water over Christmas. How many breaks in water supply have the people of Shannonvale and Ballinascarty had? All they are being fed is, "We will have a public meeting and we will talk about it." It sounds good and it is all pats on the back stuff, but it is all a whole load of nonsense. Councillor Daniel Sexton had a motion in December calling for the council to write to the Environmental Protection Agency to request it uses its full enforcement powers to compel Uisce Éireann to develop and implement an expedited action plan to end the sewage overflow and remediate the contamination of the park and the River Argideen. Imagine that leaking into the river water the people of Clonakilty are drinking, with the EPA fining Uisce Éireann on only 28 occasions. It is all a scam between the EPA and Uisce Éireann. It cannot be anything else. In 2024, it fined three communities: one in Clare, one in Macroom and the other in Shannonvale. That is three but there are five in west Cork pumping raw sewage into the clean waters that I know of. There could be ten more but I know of five, though the EPA could only find three throughout the country. That tells you the EPA is not fit for purpose. Uisce Éireann will not be fit for purpose until the Minister of State sits up and sees what can be done. How can Councillor Daniel Sexton tell the people of Rosscarbery it will be fine and that when they are swimming again next summer they could be drinking a bit of raw sewage? That is what they were doing. That is an astonishing situation to find ourselves in year after year. The people of Rosscarbery hold meeting after meeting, and rightly so. They are rightly annoyed at public representatives and ask why this issue cannot be resolved. What is Councillor Daniel Sexton going to say to the people of Dunmanway? They have been promised a bit of an auld kiss the ass job now - excuse me, Ceann Comhairle, there are ladies present. We need proper infrastructure so people can build houses in Dunmanway, which they cannot currently. It is scandalous. The Minister of State is nodding but I have no problem in the wide earthly world, if he has time, to take him around to every one of those communities because I am not making it up. In 1999 I worked with my local community in Goleen to put in a new sewerage system. It is pumping raw sewage into the clean water of Goleen still. If people want to build a few extra houses when the county development plan comes up the answer will be "No". This will be the greatest excuse to have no development anywhere. The wastewater tanks are full. They are at capacity so we cannot build and cannot do anything. What will I tell the people of Ballydehob? They have had raw sewage pumping into their waters for 17 years. This is a crisis we have from one town to another. I should not be using west Cork but it is a prime example for Ireland. We have seen one television programme after another explaining that to us. We have seen fines for Uisce Éireann for €20 million because it cannot meet its leak targets. The EPA only fines it once a year. We do not want any fines. I am not encouraging the EPA. However, if the EPA knew there was a farmer breaking the rule for one week the business would be closed down, there would be massive fines and court appearances. That is the way it works in this country. We come down on the ordinary person but Uisce Éireann can break every rule and guideline throughout the country. What about the people of Ballingeary? They are in the same situation. We have a representative there, Anna Marie O'Sullivan Cronin. Raw sewage is leaking into the clean waters there. It is a scandal beyond words and Uisce Éireann is let get away with it time and again. The Minister of State's amendment is supporting that. It will make sure Uisce Éireann is protected and will not be held accountable. All we want is communication and accountability and I do not see either in the Minister of State's reply. It is a kick-the-can-down-the-road operation to protect Uisce Eireann. We will give it the billions it wants but it does not have to be accountable for one brown cent. It does not have to answer to a local council or the Deputy in that area. It is a case of Uisce Eireann doing what it wants and asking it how much it wants and then we pump that to it and walk away. Lord God, there is something wrong with the system across the line there. The Government has to understand people are damn right to be frustrated. We are not here making up stories. Everyone here has a sad stories, and Government Deputies do too. They are in the same situation as me. They surely do not get the answers because we do not see the works being carried out. I am for accountability and communication at the very least.

In accordance with Standing Order 85(2), the division is postponed until the weekly division time this evening.