Water: Statements Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21 ============================================================ Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (SF), Donegal I asked some of my councillor colleagues in Donegal to give me feedback about their involvement with Uisce Éireann and their perspectives. I have been speaking to quite a lot of people in Donegal since statements on the issues with Uisce Éireann last week. This issue of communication is universal. As I said to the Minister last week, and he must agree with this, it is absolutely unacceptable that there is not a list of phone numbers that a public representative can ring. If you are dealing with any other State agency, there are senior people you can call and have a conversation with offline to understand what is going on and to properly communicate for your constituents. We continue to have to work with emails. The problem with that is it takes days to respond. Sometimes you need a response quickly and you cannot wait days. The Minister knows that as a long-standing public representative. This issue has to be sorted out. It is at the core of the culture that is there. I raise the lack of accountability. It is a culture of arrogance. There are so many concerns. Staff used to be in the local authorities across the State. Now there is this centralisation and outsourcing to huge numbers of companies. There are big concerns about the efficiencies of that, of whether there is a much bigger cost now to do work that used to cost a lot less when it was under the control of the local authorities with dedicated staff. There are big concerns. I meet with the HSE about health matters. I meet Donegal County Council regularly. I can lift the phone to anybody - the hospitals, the schools and every single public service I can think of. However, here we have this crucial service of water and sewerage and you cannot get answers and accountability in a timely fashion. You can send an email and get a response in due course. Often that is not good enough. It does not work and is not sustainable. I want to talk about the Eddie Fullerton Dam. It is named after my late and great colleague, Councillor Eddie Fullerton, who fought for that for years. It is a massive project based just outside Buncrana on the Inishowen peninsula. It was always understood that this water would also be used to help other communities in Donegal. The water is being directed up to Letterkenny, our major county town. That is fine with me but two other things have to happen in tandem with that. It should not be going past houses that are being left behind on the Inishowen peninsula. It should benefit the Inishowen peninsula. It should benefit Letterkenny but there should also be other infrastructure plans other than Letterkenny. I said this last week and will say it again but if Uisce Éireann was around then, I do not think it would have happened. That is the way it was then. It happened and the project drove on. Uisce Éireann has inherited this fantastic dam, reservoir, project and water supply. It is an absolute blessing but it is not developing around the hills of Letterkenny and it is bypassing homes in Inishowen. It is causing friction and concern. If I could get speaking to senior officials in Irish Water, I would not have to make this speech. My final appeal to the Minister is to please make it clear that it is time for respect for public representatives and communities. It is time for answers and accountability from Uisce Éireann. It is time for an end to the culture of arrogance. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-21