Adams condemns Irish Water debacle
13 January, 2014 - by Gerry Adams TD
Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams TD
has called on the Irish government to make Irish Water compliant with the
Freedom of Information Act and to move speedily to ensure that all relevant
information about the establishment of Irish Water is accessible and available
to the public.
The Sinn Féin Louth and East Meath TD
said:
“The debacle around Irish Water is
symptomatic of the failures of the Fine Gael and Labour government. Both
parties came to power condemning the bad politics of Fianna Fáil and promising
greater transparency and openness and accountability in government. Instead
there has been a litany of broken promises and u-turns and the guillotine has
seen significant use in the Dáil as the government has sought to stifle debate
and push through its legislation.
“In government Fine Gael and Labour
abolished water charges. In opposition they rejected water charges but now in
government again they are reintroducing them. It is also
worth noting that Fianna Fáil agreed to impose water charges under an EU-IMF
arrangement but is now opposed to them.
“From the very beginning of the
project, Irish water has wasted good money after bad;
· It has received €500m from the
Pension Reserve Fund to install water meters
· This was followed by over €200m in
the recent budget
· Only to be followed by a further
allocation from the local government fund
“Then, this week Irish Water admitted
that the company has spent €50m of public money on private consultants.
“People across the state are angry at
this huge outlay of public money. Such public anger is understandable
considering the level of experience regarding water supply that already exists
in the 34 local councils.
“Rather than spend this enormous
amount of money on private consultants, Irish Water should have given this work
to local authority staff. This would have been an immediate saving to the
taxpayer.
“We learned on Sunday, through a
confidential report obtained by RTÉ's This Week programme that the Government
expected Irish Water would be established using Bord Gáis' "existing
operational capacity" in the specific areas of IT, asset management,
customer billing systems, and other key functions.
“However, according to tender
documents published on the European tendering system, the Official Journal of
the European Union, the services that Irish Water has acquired from external
consultants include asset management services, customer services, and other IT
functions — the very services the report said should be deployed by Bord Gáis.
“So, major questions now need to be
asked regarding the payment of €50 million of public money on private
consultants.
“Sinn Féin intends raising this issue
in the Dáil when it returns on Wednesday.”
Concluding Gerry Adams said:
“Water charges are an integral part
of the government’s austerity strategy. They are an unacceptable additional
stealth charge on households. The installation of water meters, their cost and
the water charges that will follow will add significantly to the burden on
families. This regressive tax, coupled with the others already imposed by this
government, are crippling households and families.
Sinn Féin is fundamentally opposed to the
introduction of water charges, to the privatisation of water and sewerage
service provision.
In the north Sinn Féin has prevented the
introduction of water charges and the privatisation of the water services and
will continue to do so.”
Sinn Féin Mountmellick - Serving The Community
No comments:
Post a Comment