Irish Water needs to be turned off – O’Brien

​Fianna Fáil candidate for Dublin Fingal Senator Darragh O’Brien says Irish Water needs to be turned off.
“Fianna Fáil consistently opposed the creation of Irish Water. The controversy of consultancy costs, bonuses and overstaffing at the super quango has borne out our fears,” added the party’s Dublin spokesperson.

“Irish Water as an entity will continue to haemorrhage government money, and get the state further into debt (borrowing at higher interest rates than available to the NTMA) unless it is wound down and its operations returned to more sensible delivery structure.

“The subvention for Irish Water to cover only its costs of administation and establishment are paid via motor tax receipts. While many motorists pay motor taxes in the anticipation that this will go towards repairing local roads, in fact none of the motor tax receipts collected in Dublin will go towards fixing local roads.

“In fact, over €115m of the €300m of the expected revenues collected from Dublin motorists in 2016 will go towards Irish Water. Unless we wind up Irish Water soon, €479m in 2016 will be wasted on the company. This will be spent purely on the administration costs of the super-quango, not a cent of this will be spent on fixing water infrastructure. This money is on top of €948m that has already been siphoned off motor tax receipts in 2014 and 2015.”