Senator John McGahon- speech from 15 Jul 2024

Thank you very much, Cahirleach. Leader, what I'd hoped to do is to ask for a debate about Irish water and our water infrastructure in September when we come back to this House. And I do that because of an issue that I've raised previously in this House over the last two years, but has gotten to quite a serious extent now. And that's in my hometown of Dundalk, a town of 42,000 people, where the water is absolutely rotten on so many different occasions. It is brown throughout the day for a huge amount of people right across the biggest town in this country. And over the last two weeks, I've collected a lot of evidence from it, where I have over 180 different examples of homes that are affected by it. And this provides a huge range of issues, whether it's people trying to bathe young babies, whether it's elderly people who can't use drinking water and are then spending money on bottled water. And the excuses that we have gotten back from Irish water simply haven't been up to the standard that I would expect from a body like that. This is happening every summer for the last three summers. But this summer in particular, it's getting exceptionally difficult. There never seems to be a proper solution in place from Irish water. And I think it's fair to say that we should have a debate about general water infrastructure in this house in September. Because it is simply just not on that a town the size of the town that it is, 42,000 people, every summer for the last three summers is dealing with this issue. And I know it's the same in other towns and villages around this country. And we have to be able to come up with some sort of a solution because people continuously having to buy bottled water is not it. And I would appreciate it if we could have that debate at some stage in September when we come back. Workers. Workers.