Previously the funding of local government required that motor taxation revenue would go to fund local authorities. The Government pilfered this account and took money, which we as car owners have continued to pay, from the local authority budgets to pay the national debt. Now it is looking for it again. To listen to the Tánaiste one would think the local authorities never fixed a water main or brought in any programmes to remediate. Is it not the case that under the Government not a single kilometre of water mains has been repaired? Is it not the case that within a kilometre of this building are massive public buildings where not one measure such as rainwater harvesting or other conservation measures has been imposed? The local authorities in the greater Dublin area were working on a geographic information system project involving mapping, leakage and telemetry of our water system. This project cost the taxpayers millions and has involved tens of thousands of staff hours. It was almost at completion, which would have been brilliant to secure our understanding of our water supply, but Irish Water has axed it. It will not go ahead because somebody in Irish Water's friend, who works in Bord Gáis, has a different computer system. What is unfolding in Irish Water will make the HSE look like an efficient fit for purpose organisation. It is nothing more than a quango lining up our water services to be privatised to Denis O'Brien, who has done the Government some nice favours through his ownership of Independent News and Media.

The Deputy should not make comments like this. This is a serious issue. Do not bring in other people.

Whoever Independent News and Media have done favours for it is certainly not me or my party.

There are a few nice photographs in it today.

I would go again on this one if I were the Deputy.

The Tánaiste is suffering like us.

Perhaps I did not hear the Deputy correctly, but with regard to being opposed to a Garda authority-----

Please do not go there.

I just wanted to have an opportunity-----

Stick to water.

I will take the Ceann Comhairle's admonition and will stick to water.

That is equally uncomfortable for the Tánaiste.

First, the local authorities have done a good job in their management of the water resource. The engineers and staff of the local authorities who have worked on water down through the years certainly have done a creditable job. However, there were 34 different water authorities nationwide and just as one would not, these days, have 34 different local distributors of electricity or gas, as was the case in the past when there were local generators and distributors of electricity, it does not make sense in the modern world to have such a multiplicity of deliverers of any utility, including, in this case, water.

There are a number of issues pertaining to water that must be addressed, the first of which is the adequacy of the supply. We have been fortunate and it has been a credit to the local authorities in Dublin that we have not ended up with a water crisis in Dublin. Over the greater Dublin area, not just the city itself but the greater Dublin catchment area, as the development of the city continued and as it grew, there was insufficient investment in the delivery of water to supply the people adequately. Consequently, we have been fortunate to avoid a crisis in that regard. Irish Water will be investing in the delivery to ensure there is an adequate supply of water. We have not been so fortunate in other cities. In Galway, for example, people ended up with a serious problem some years ago. Similar problems exist in other parts of the country, where the quality of water is substandard and this requires investment. This is why there must be a fund to underpin the spending that must take place to ensure the continuation of an adequate supply of clean water. The system of charging for water that the Government has brought in, which is based on usage, which takes account of family size and medical conditions as well as people who have problems with ability to pay, is a reasonable arrangement. Instead of some of the scare stories that are being told to people in this regard, Members need to provide people with the facts.