“South Tipperary is near the bottom of Irish Water’s priorities,” McGrath Independent TD Mattie McGrath has expressed his disgust at confirmation of the fact that Irish Water has no emergency coverage in place outside of business hours and at weekends in six local authorities –among which South Tipperary is included. Deputy McGrath went on to say that the absence of such vital services was further confirmation that Irish Water who have had responsibility for the Country’s water infrastructure since January 1st was nothing more than a Quango conceived in haste and which will now be repented over in leisure: “The fact that South Tipperary households who are faced with a burst pipe or sewerage problem on a Friday evening will have to wait more than 60 hours for a response from the new utility is not only appalling, but also deeply worrying given that we know from experience that this is likely to be a minimum response time in many cases. In January we had the disgusting revelation that this new agency spent over €50 million on so called consultancy fees and a further revelation in June that it had spent at least €55,000 on a gym for its employees. The evidence thus far points to the conclusion that there is scant interest in actually providing a high quality service and more interest in splashing around the cash like the water they want us to conserve. It is a clear case of the imposition of restraint on the many while the few in privileged positions within the quango lay out exorbitant amounts of money. This disparity is infuriating and will simply confirm to people that Irish Water is a tool of Government to extract revenue while leaving the most basic services under resourced or non-existent as the case is here. I will be calling on Irish Water to give absolute assurances that the people of South Tipperary will not be treated like second class citizens in terms of the provision of basic emergency cover. As it is the people of Clonmel North are being forced to pay for hard water they cannot use and now they will have to pay toward a service they cannot rely on,” concluded Deputy McGrath.
Posted on: Mon, 23 Jun 2014 12:29:29 +0000