Senator John McGahon- speech from 26 Oct 2022
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Transcript
Thank you very much, Lasky Heirloch. Leader, today I would like to ask for a debate on Irish water at some stage, hopefully between now and Christmas. And the reason why I'm asking for a debate on Irish water is really because of the quality of water in my town of Dundalk, a town of 42,000 people over the last 18 months. Irish water are very good at communicating with Oireachtas members and councillors, that's undoubtable. We all get emails every day, we all get updates. I can't fault their level of communication. But what I can fault and what I want to call into question is the type of responses of the answers. Because for the last 18 months, we have been getting in County Loud the exact same responses about why water quality is so poor in Dundalk, that there's sediment in the pipes and that when issues happen, the sediment rises up. But to put that into actual context of what that means, if you turn on a tap now in the town of Dundalk, it's going to be brown water for the first minute. Brown water coming straight out. And the advice from Irish water is to just let the tap go for a minute and after that you can drink it. But that's not an acceptable solution whatsoever. And it's been happening sporadically every 18 months. And I'm not getting up today raising it in the Senate just because it's happened in the last two days. This has been happening consistently now for 18 months. And it's not acceptable for Irish water to have the same excuse over 18 months. So it leads me to believe, is there something else happening? Is there another reason for this? Is there something that Irish water aren't telling us? Because it can't be the same excuse every single time consistently. And it is simply not acceptable in a town of 42,000 people that you do not have quality drinking water, that you have people being forced to buy bottled water, that you have people afraid to even use the water that's coming out of their taps. And I'd really appreciate, Minister, and I'm convinced it's not just an issue in my town. I'm sure it's right around the country. And I would really appreciate, Leader, if we could organise that debate at some stage on Irish water between now and Christmas.