Last week, I spoke about the secrecy surrounding the establishment costs of Irish Water and the failure, in particular, to provide any detailed responses to a series of parliamentary questions on that subject over the previous 12 months. I went on last Thursday to ask the Tánaiste if he could give me a reason the Government agreed to approve bonuses to the staff of Irish Water - the State will be liable for up to €2 million in respect of bonuses - and what was the rationale behind that, particularly given the comments of the Minister, Deputy Burton, the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, who were so strongly opposed to the idea of bonuses in situations like this. The Minister, Deputy Burton, said she would raise it at the Cabinet today and with her fellow Ministers. Can the Taoiseach explain why the Government decided to approve bonuses for the staff in Irish Water and can he confirm if the Minister, Deputy Burton, raised it with him and with other Ministers at Cabinet today?

A significant number of senior staff at Irish Water have been recruited from local authorities, from Bord Gáis and from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Can the Taoiseach confirm that such staff received generous lump sums on retirement and pensions before moving on to Irish Water. Can he give details of that to the House and can he confirm that? Why was there so little emphasis on external recruitment to Irish Water?

The Taoiseach said to me last week that Irish Water would be subject to proper parliamentary questions and responses. In an extraordinary contribution to the Private Members' debate that evening, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd, flatly contradicted the Taoiseach and said that the opposite would be the case, that the Minister would not be giving any detailed responses in regard to Irish Water into the future. Last evening, Deputy Barry Cowen belatedly received an apology from the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government because of the failure to give adequate responses to his parliamentary questions, but bizarrely in the context of that telephone conversation went on to confirm that there would be no future responses to parliamentary questions on Irish Water given in this House. Who is correct? Is it the Taoiseach, the Minister of State, Deputy O'Dowd or the Secretary General of the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government?

Returning to my first question, why did the Taoiseach approve the bonuses? Can he confirm, and does he believe it is acceptable, that staff, including senior managers, moving from local authorities would receive generous lump sums, and bonuses now in Irish Water, as a result of this operation?

Irish Water was set up by a Government decision to provide a single utility to take over from 34 local authorities and deal with the situation that has arisen in recent years in the context of the supply of quality water, the capacity and standard of that supply and so on and the opportunity by so doing to extract and save €1.1 billion in operating costs over the next seven years. Irish Water was set up following a tender process and it was agreed by Government that it should be set up on the basis of the tender submitted by Bord Gáis, which had expertise available to it through its development over quite a period. Were Irish Water to be set up independently as a single entity, the estimated cost would have been twice what has been put in for the commencement of Irish Water.

As the Deputy is aware, Bord Gáis has a situation where performance pay is available to employees. As he is aware also, the unions in Bord Gáis have agreed that there will be a pay freeze until 2016. The unions have further agreed that no increments should be paid and that the performance pay is based on achieving a particular set of criteria, objectives and targets. The same applies in the case of Irish Water, Uisce Éireann. I have asked the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, in the interests of transparency and accountability, to have the chief executive provide him with the full information on those criteria that apply in the case of Uisce Éireann, Irish Water, so that everybody will understand what is involved if an employee is to achieve an output of work or a productivity that would allow him or her achieve a performance pay rating.

Having spoken to an engineer who came from a local authority to Irish Water as part of a normal application process, the person involved is probably worse off in the sense that the level of travel and subsistence available during the person's time as a local authority employee is not available now to the same extent.

Lump sums.

Also, the scale of holidays is seven days less.

Lump sums.

The chief executive will be happy to lay all of that out before people to ensure there is full transparency in that regard.

As the Deputy knows, Irish Water will be subject to the freedom of information Act. The apology given by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to Deputy Cowen and some other Member who put in a question was because-----

Yes, Deputy Humphreys got it last week but Deputy Cowen only got it last night.

Yes. It was because the Department sent it to the company, the parliamentary questions having come in the normal way, and they were not followed up by the company. The apology was on that basis. This is a public utility and as I said last week, it will be scrutinised by the Oireachtas and by civil society because it is subject to the freedom of information Act. That is the reason it was set up in the way it was set up and that is why that applies.

With a minute remaining, I find the Taoiseach's response to be incredible in terms of the bonus. Basically, what he is saying is that the bonus culture is back, and it is alive and well in Irish Water, and the Taoiseach and the Government approved it, despite what the Minister, Deputy Joan Burton, the Minister of State, Deputy Brian Hayes, and the Minister, Deputy Howlin, said. I asked the Taoiseach a simple question: why did he approve it? He knew about this but he went against his own advice. The Taoiseach said the estimate was that it would be cheaper. The opposite is the case. The advice the Taoiseach got from PricewaterhouseCoopers was that it would be far more expensive to set up Irish Water as a subsidiary of Bord Gáis. That was the actual advice, and that has proven to be the case. A total of €168 million, and €2 million on bonuses, will go to the staff. They all said they were against bonuses-----

The Deputy might ask a question.

-----that they would not happen and we would never see them again but now it is happening in the context of Irish Water, which is established to charge for water. It will not take over the work of the local authorities. We know part of the deal is that the local authorities will continue to deliver and maintain water services through their service level agreements for the next 12 years.

I asked the Taoiseach about lump sums and he did not respond, skirting around it with the usual old story about a fellow he met.

What does Paddy think now?

I asked the Taoiseach a question about senior managers who came from local authorities to Irish Water. Can he confirm that these managers received a lump sum on retirement as well as generous pension arrangements, and have now moved seamlessly into senior level positions at Irish Water, where they will enjoy these bonuses? Does the Taoiseach think this is acceptable and can he confirm whether it is the case?

All of the information is available to the chief executive of Irish Water.

The Taoiseach should tell us.

It should be put in the public domain and there is nothing to hide. Those who were employees of local authorities were subject to the Haddington Road agreement and were part of the discussions and negotiations.

I do not understand what that has to do with it.

Deputy Martin made the point about PwC. The Government must make decisions, just as Deputy Martin's Government did. I distinctly remember the previous Administration paid €7 million to a major financial company in respect of the bank guarantee. Deputy Martin said he should not have done what he did, yet that was paid for three days' work.

We are talking about now.

The Taoiseach voted for the bank guarantee.

Deputy Martin continuously interrupts, but the situation in our country is that 18,000 people on public water supplies either must boil water or have a restriction in place. Can we continue with that? The Environmental Protection Agency has determined that we must take remedial action on supplies where there are risks-----

They will still be boiling it.

-----covering almost 1 million people, or 16% of supplies, and including some of the very large supply areas such as parts of the Dublin city water supply and the Cork city supply. In Dublin there are serious supply constraints, as daily demand is 96% of supply. We saw what happened with the Poulaphouca reservoir before Christmas. There are still large amounts of water unaccounted for, with a national average of 40.8%. This cannot continue-----

The Government spent €180 million on a new water utility.

-----and it should not continue. Irish Water is a new utility to provide a facility for consumers, businesses and future development with high standards, efficiency in terms of leaks and delivery, and capacity for the future. It stands to reason. I meet companies that come to me and say we need X million litres per day. We cannot have up to 40% of the taxes people pay leaking into the ground. It is not viable and it has gone on for the past 35 years. It is time to put a stop to it.

Paddy is not happy.