Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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According to Irish Water-Uisce Éireann's 2023 annual report, published last month, there was €10.57 million paid in bonuses to the company's staff, a 7% increase on 2022. We know from previous annual reports these bonuses are stacked towards the top earners. In 2021, bonuses averaged €6,560 per staff member, yet the top earners received €19,171 each. There was also an increase in hospitality spend from €54,000 in 2022 to €129,000 in 2023.

Last January, Ireland was convicted in the European Court of Justice of having toxins above EU safety levels. The court found drinking water for nearly 240,000 people was at unsafe levels and that the State, through Irish Water, failed in its obligation to rid public and private water supplies of toxins. It faces fines and penalties. Last month the EPA released a report which found no improvement in water quality; in fact there was a net decrease in the biological quality of lakes and rivers.

We are all aware of the ongoing situation in north Cork with dirty water coming out of taps, ruining appliances and putting the cost of buying bottled water on ordinary people. Irish Water built a new €40 million treatment plant which deteriorated water quality, and then employed private contractors to fix the issue, which seems to have led to further deterioration. This has been repeated in many parts of the country.

The fact is Irish Water is committed to a system of outsourcing water to private contractors. I have raised and criticised that system repeatedly in this House. The system is crumbling and is not working. The local authority workers on the ground are holding it together. When people report problems with their water supply to Uisce Éireann, it comes back to them saying the work has been recorded and done. In fact, in the majority of cases, it is local authority staff who do the work.

There were reports earlier this month that Irish Water needed an extra €500 million per year to keep up with the construction costs of new-build housing. I have heard Irish Water has huge unpaid bills to contractors, quarries and local suppliers I met a group of water workers yesterday, one of whom had a contract with Irish Water. The worker went into a hardware shop to make a purchase and was told the deal had been stopped because there were unpaid bills from last August. The council engineer had to use his council card to pay for the supplies. Meanwhile, we have seen the cost of maintenance skyrocket as Irish Water moves away from the old model of permanent, trained local authority water workers to expensive, often inexperienced and undertrained private contractors.

Why are these bonuses being paid, especially to management in Irish Water? Water quality is not improving. In many cases, it is getting worse. We cannot meet environmental or EU water standards and directives. Basic maintenance costs are ballooning because private contractors are far more expensive than local authority workers.

I am hearing locally, from the horse’s mouth, that our water services are being held together by local authority workers who we are in imminent danger of losing from the services because we have not had a referendum on public ownership of water supply and management. These workers will not cross over to Irish Water unless they are able to keep their public service status. If we allow all those workers to leave our water services, along with all their knowledge and experience, which we will never get back, there will be nothing to stop our public water service from going into freefall. Irish Water and any government that stands over its current policy of outsourcing and creeping privatisation will bear responsibility for this.

I have said time and again in the House that this model of outsourcing will not work and is not working. Ask any water worker, anyone living in north Cork or the European Court of Justice.

It is now clear the Government has no intention of holding a referendum on water in its lifetime. I never thought it had that intention anyway but as its members keeps saying it will hold one, I will keep asking. Does the Government plan to hold the referendum it promised on the public ownership and management of water before its term ends?

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I thank the Deputy. I am answering on behalf of the Minister for housing, who has responsibility for water and other things. The Deputy is quite right. Uisce Éireann's annual report and financial statements for the year ended 31 December 2023 were laid before the Houses at the end of June 2024. The year 2023 is the first year that Uisce Éireann has been audited, both by its commercial auditor, Deloitte, and the Comptroller and Auditor General. Those new accountability arrangements were provided for in the Water Services Act 2013, as amended. What is very interesting and important is the Minister expects that the public accounts committee, which is the body, working with the Comptroller and Auditor General, that oversees public spending and value for money in that spending for the State, will invite the chief executive officer and the chairperson of Uisce Éireann to give evidence, as is often the case with public bodies, on Uisce Éireann's financial statements in accordance with the statutory provisions in that regard.

Uisce Éireann, the national authority for water services, is a stand-alone publicly owned regulated utility. It was established to operate in a commercially viable manner. It is geared towards making a profit, notwithstanding Uisce Éireann's funding model. However, the profit generated by Uisce Éireann reflects the idea of a regulatory model that provides for a return on capital invested, which is then applied by Uisce Éireann to fund further water and wastewater infrastructure investment. The Deputy highlighted a number of different examples. I will mention Dún Laoghaire, which requires significant capital investment to upgrade its water services. The model is one of trying to generate a profit to further invest in water services.

Uisce Éireann's governing legislation provides for the recruitment of its staff on terms and conditions to be determined by Uisce Éireann. It is not a public service body and its employees are not covered by the definition of public servant. Uisce Éireann is statutorily obliged to have regard to Government policy on the remuneration and conditions of employment of its staff. Government policy on the remuneration and conditions of employment of staff is set out in the code of practice for the governance of State bodies. As a commercial State body, Uisce Éireann is obviously subject to that code.

The Minister does not have a role in setting or agreeing general rates of pay in Uisce Éireann. The only exception to that relates to the remuneration of the chief executive officer. Again, that is provided for in primary legislation, which is obviously subject to the opinions of the House. As such, the matters raised by the Deputy on bonus payments to Uisce Éireann's staff, as well as any other spend in Uisce Éireann, are operational matters for the company. The Minister does not have any function in that regard. However, like everything else, it will be open to the public accounts committee to consider Uisce Éireann's financial statements, when Uisce Éireann representatives give evidence to it in due course. That is of course a matter for the public accounts committee.

Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independents 4 Change)
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I welcome that Uisce Éireann will now be audited. It is about time. Its 2023 accounts will probably not go to the public accounts committee until next year, however, as it will not produce its report until the end of 2024. I am putting on record the issues that are happening within Irish Water. The Minister of State made the point it is not a publicly owned regulated utility. That is quite correct. Workers will not go to Irish Water until it is because that is what they want. They are demanding that the referendum on the public ownership and management of water takes place so they can confidently go to Irish Water as public servants, keep their conditions and a good level of pay, and be guaranteed their jobs. Workers will not go to Irish Water otherwise.

I am putting the Minister of State on notice that in 2026, we will be in an even worse situation than we are now because those workers will go back to the local authorities to look for jobs rather than go to Irish Water. Irish Water does not have the experience of these water workers. They have a huge amount of experience. I talked to one lad yesterday who did two years on the ground, and then went to college for two years to get qualifications in the science of water and all that type of thing for the area he was in. He is seriously thinking of just staying with the local authority. The amount of experience we will lose can be imagined as Irish Water does not have the expertise and is not recruiting.

The reason the hospitality spend has increased, and I just noticed this from talking to water workers yesterday, is that Uisce Éireann is having publicity events or whatever. It is inviting local authority workers to these events and is desperately trying to encourage them to come across to Irish Water using celebrity sports people. There was one in Croke Park recently at which a sportsperson was on the invitation. Local authority workers were offered free meals and free drink to try to encourage them into Uisce Éireann. That is how desperate Irish Water has got. It cannot recruit that experience. I am putting the Government on notice that a serious issue is coming down the line on this.

Jennifer Carroll MacNeill (Dún Laoghaire, Fine Gael)
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I appreciate the point the Deputy made. It goes beyond my ability to respond on behalf of the Minister because I do not have the operational knowledge. I certainly hear the Deputy. It is important that she takes her opportunity to put us on notice. It is a different model. That is the one that was chosen for the purposes of trying to invest in future waterworks. There may just be different approaches on that. It has obviously been through the House. I hear what the Deputy is saying and I appreciate being able to listen and understand that today.