Garret Ahearn (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I ask for a debate with the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, on Irish Water on a couple of fronts. The staffing of Irish Water and the moving of staff to it from local authorities is not going quite well, to say the very least. It could have been predicted a number of years ago that this would not go quite well because of differing terms and conditions for staff who move from local authorities to Irish Water.

Senator Dolan talked about small businesses in rural areas. Good quality water is important for small businesses in towns such as Clonmel, where I live. We have a situation where Irish Water plans to close a perfectly good plant that services half of Clonmel with top-quality water that comes from the Comeragh Mountains into the town. It comes freely down the hill. People do not have to pay for any pumps; it just comes in.

Irish Water has decided to close that plant rather than upgrade it and, while closing it, use another plant at Monroe, which is just outside the town on the Fethard side of Clonmel, to service the area that will need to be serviced. The problem is that it will use hard water. That is bad enough when it comes into residential houses, although people can get things to sort it out. However, for businesses, especially coffee shops and restaurants, hard water is an absolute disaster. All the businesses in Clonmel that will end up being put on this scheme, in a number of years, will have to constantly upgrade and service the water coming into their businesses because of a decision made by Irish Water, which is being made because it is cheaper to do it that way. Perfectly good water is coming from a mountain downhill. It does not cost anything to bring it down. All the current plant needs is to be upgraded. It has perfect water but we are closing that plant to bring not-perfect water, but hard water, which will be a cost for all the businesses in Clonmel.

It is impossible to think this is not happening in other towns but it is utter madness from a long-term perspective. People want to have a mountain such as we have in Clonmel, from where we can get perfectly good water that comes down it, yet we are deciding to get rid of that water.