Water: Statements
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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John McGuinness (FF), Carlow-Kilkenny

I will make a point about services in this country and the general bureaucracy that holds up every single development that is undertaken. I should not say "every single development" but it is an issue for some major developments. We do not seem to be capable of empowering local authorities or Government agencies to deliver efficiently and well. If that was done, we would not have the same number of TDs, councillors and Senators making representations. When a service does not function, the general public has nowhere to turn other than to us. I attended a public meeting in Inistioge about the development of the village and a neighbouring area called The Rower. At one stage, this area was second on the list to have facilities provided by the council or Irish Water. Now, it is fifth on the list and no one can explain why. We cannot have a system that randomly picks one place over another. Huge investment must be made through Irish Water and directed towards villages and towns that want to develop, that have areas to develop and where people want to live. I will say another thing about Irish Water.
The Greenfields housing estate in Kilkenny is serviced by an antiquated system that is just completely broken down. Irish Water will not provide the turn-off valves that are necessary to control the water should there be a burst pipe. Very recently, there was a burst pipe. A house gets flooded and who do the people turn to? Their local public representative or TD. What we get from Irish Water is just static. There is no sense of urgency about delivering the corrective measures that are necessary to make sure those households do not flood any more. There is not an understanding from Irish Water about local issues, either. In Inistioge, they were not aware of the fact that very close to the outflow pipe from a treatment system was an area where people got into the water and swam. They did not see it. We have lost a lot of local knowledge as we move towards the bigger entity of Irish Water. That could be said about the HSE as well. We need to debate it much more here in the Chamber so we get to the point where we are creating the policy and driving it to deliver for the people we represent. Irish Water needs to do much more in the small villages throughout County Kilkenny and indeed Carlow to make it effective in terms of allowing local populations to grow and people to live and work in their own communities.

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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