FINANCE Minister Michael Noonan has acknowledged that “there’s no doubt at all that there are issues to be addressed” regarding Irish Water and that he hopes they will be addressed by the organisation’s management “with the assistance of the government”.
Speaking in Limerick this week, the Minister also noted that there has been “a lot of controversy” and “a lot of questions” surrounding the water utility company.
He continued: “One never likes controversies in public life – I’m sure Sinn Féin are not too pleased with the controversy they have – but the Government is committed to addressing the issues in Irish Water and making sure that it’s a very efficient commercial semi-state organisation.”
Minister Noonan added that the Government is also committed to imposing “a modest charge on water because it’s such a scarce resource”.
“I think it’s recognised internationally that the best way to manage a scarce resource always is to have charges on it so that people save on usage where there’s an expensive commodity like that,” he said.
“Water is an expensive commodity, because it has to be treated, and it has to be delivered to each household and every business in the country. When Irish Water is fully established, it will be as big an organisation as the ESB, so they have an enormous task.
“It’s a pity there has been such controversy and I hope they can work their way through the controversies in the short term rather than in the long-term”, he said.
In relation to reports this week that Irish Water staff could earn annual bonuses of up to 19 per cent, the Fine Gael Minister said: “As I understand the performance pay or bonuses, the arrangement is similar to the arrangements that prevail in Bord Gáis Éireann, and they applied that to their subsidiary.
“When that performance pay arrangement came in with the representative bodies in Bord Gáis Éireann, it was in lieu of incremental salary and the workers lost a lot of their incremental salary privileges to move onto the scheme of the bonuses.
“I’m not too sure of the full detail of it, because obviously it’s a commercial semi-state that runs its own affairs”, he concluded.
