Irish Water Fiasco

Independent TD Mattie McGrath has called on the Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly to resign following confirmation of an embarrassingly low rate of payment of bills from Irish Water. Deputy McGrath was speaking after the controversial quango released figures indicating that just 43% of the company’s 1.5 million customers have paid their bills; leaving Irish Water with a staggering €37m capital deficit:

“This is just the latest in a string of fiasco’s that the Minister has presided over since he took office.

His political stewardship of every major contentious issue that has crossed his desk is appalling.

In March and April Tipperary experienced the Country’s second highest cut in LEADER Funding allocation levels with a dramatic reduction of €15 million occurring over the next five years.

Last week the number of homeless children in Dublin alone exceeded 1000 for the first time despite the best efforts of the Minister to convince us all that he is implementing meaningful reforms; something flatly contradicted by veteran campaigners like Fr Peter McVerry and focus Ireland.

I have also had it confirmed that the Mortgage to Rent Scheme which falls under his Departments remit completed just 104 mortgage to rent transactions from June 2012 to the present, with Tipperary seeing just three approvals in that time.

Shatter did not listen to the whistle blowers, Reilly did not listen to GP’s, Hogan dismissed rural Ireland. So in that regard Minister Kelly fits right in at the Cabinet table; but it is a position he has increasingly shown himself unable to effectively manage and so it is time he went and took Irish Water with him,” concluded Deputy McGrath.