Independent Ireland tabled a motion on Uisce Éireann two weeks ago. All we asked for was accountability and timelines. Nothing more and nothing unreasonable, yet the Government opposed it. It was shameful to oppose a motion that simply asked a semi-State body to answer to the people they are supposed to serve.

Uisce Éireann will receive €2.2 billion from the Exchequer in 2026 and a staggering €13.6 billion between 2025 and 2029. With that level of public funding, this Government cannot wash its hands of responsibility. It is accountable for how this organisation behaves, but for some reason, the Government seems afraid to hold Uisce Éireann to account at all.

Accountability is a small ask. Some communities have been waiting 28 years for a simple timeline on when their wastewater treatment plants will stop leaking into local drinking water and community playgrounds that were once meant for children. That is not politics. That is public health, public safety and basic respect for citizens.

Instead of demanding answers, this Government signed off on a €108,000 salary increase for the CEO of Uisce Éireann taking his earnings from €225,000 to €333,000. This was approved by the board last Friday and sanctioned by the Government before Christmas. Uisce Éireann claims it reflects the scale of complexity of the role and the leadership needed to manage a €12.2 billion budget. How can anyone talk about accountability when the organisation's track record tells a different story? Niall Gleeson has been in leadership since 2019 and the CEO since 2022. During this period, delivery has gone from boom to bust.

Before Irish Water took over, local authorities, even under massive pressure, always gave public representatives a timeline. Do you know what? That kept communities calm. What we get now is a copy and paste generic response that mocks the people who are already stretched beyond words. It is absolutely scandalous that a semi-State company's CEO is rewarded with €333,000 a year and the company cannot give a straight answer to the communities in crisis. Instead, we have wastewater plants leaking across this island, polluting local rivers and oceans and water mains that are constantly leaking. Uisce Éireann was hit with €20 million in fines last year for failing to meet leakage reduction targets, fines the taxpayer ultimately covers.

While this is happening, this Government's priority seems to be signing off on a pay rise and bonuses, not accountability. In this year's budget, many workers got no relief whatsoever. Households are stretched to breaking point during a cost-of-living crisis, yet somehow the Government approved a €108,000 wage increase for the CEO while hard-working people got nothing.

I am asking the Tánaiste the same question the nation is asking. How in God's name did the Government think it was appropriate to approve this massive salary increase at a time Uisce Éireann is failing communities and ordinary workers are getting absolutely nothing?

I acknowledge that this is an issue that the Deputy has raised a lot in this House. It relates to Uisce Éireann, how it functions and, perhaps almost as importantly, how it answers to and engages with the Government, the Oireachtas and communities as well.

To be honest, I expect a bit better in relation to this too. I can assure the Deputy that it is not just an issue on his side of the House. On this side of the House, many of my colleagues point out the need for better community engagement and better engagement with public representatives. I spoke to the Minister for housing, Deputy Browne about this in recent days and to the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, who is due to meet Uisce Éireann shortly.

We need to have a conversation. I saw a debate in the Dáil, I think it was last week, about how Uisce Éireann even answers to Oireachtas Members and that it is not included in parliamentary questions and the like. We need to look at getting a better information flow because, at the end of the day, we have to answer to our bosses, who are the people of Ireland and the people in our constituencies. We need that information and that regular and respectful engagement. The Government has an open mind on how to improve that flow of information in terms of accountability and the likes. We will engage on that with Irish Water as well.

I want to make a broader point. It is, of course, answerable to quite a number of bodies. There is extensive oversight and regulatory control of Uisce Éireann as well. It is commercially audited in accordance with the Companies Act. It is subject to an audit by the Comptroller and Auditor General. It is subject to the Code of Practice for the Governance of State Bodies. It is accountable to Oireachtas committees, including the public accounts committee, which is always a body that focuses the mind. The Commission for the Regulation of Utilities is responsible for the independent economic regulation of Uisce Éireann and that ensures that it operates efficiently as well.

The Minister, Deputy Browne, has emphasised the importance of better and improved communication with elected representatives and with communities. He made that point when he met Uisce Éireann. He received assurances that it will be back to them with proposals on that. We want to see them urgently because this is an important issue in many communities right across our country.

To be balanced in our comments, I want to point to some significant successes we have seen since the establishment of Uisce Éireann. For the first time we have a single public water utility organisation. We have seen the investment in infrastructure grow from just €300 million in 2014 to €1.4 billion as part of the budget that we agreed in this House last year. We have also seen significant improvement in the provision of water services in many areas. Hundreds of water and wastewater treatment plants have been upgraded. Thousands of kilometres of new or rehabilitated water mains have been installed. The national leakage rate is still too high but has been reduced, and, overall, the quality of drinking water does remain very high as well.

One of the things I am most eager about is the developer-led infrastructure delivery. We had a frank conversation with Irish Water and I do not mind sharing it here. We have significantly increased the amount of taxpayer funding to that organisation. In return, we want to see developer-led infrastructure where relatively small-scale developers can deliver the infrastructure to an Irish Water standard, but they can deliver it. We also want to see an improvement in connection rates and a direct correlation between the extra investment we are giving to Uisce Éireann and the delivery of housing supply.

I take the Deputy's point about engagement and accountability and I will be back to him on it.

As the Tánaiste said, answers and engagement from Uisce Éireann to Oireachtas Members is a non-goer. Any improvements there would be greatly welcomed because we are pulling the hair out of our heads to get responses for our communities. I do agree with the developer-led scheme he referred to because that is the only way we are going to deliver.

I do, however, believe that people deserve pay increases too. I am not standing on this side of the House saying absolutely not, but how can I explain how this Government sought to reward the CEO of Uisce Éireann with a rise of 47% when others on the breadline got nothing? How can I tell the people of Adrigole, who were forced to close their crèche as they are two days without mains water and experienced 16 breaks since last June, that Uisce Éireann is looking after them or the people of Ballinascarthy and Shannonvale who went without water at Christmas or the people of Goleen, Ballydehob, Rosscarbery, Dunmanway and Shannonvale who are waiting decades for upgrades to their wastewater tanks? They never get any updates as to what is happening and when it is going to happen. How can I tell Councillor Noel Thomas in Galway that the new wastewater treatment plant in Connemara will deliver across to Carraroe, Costello, Tully and Ros an Mhíl? I cannot as Uisce Éireann has become untouchable and non-contactable on its road to non-delivery, but shamefully this Government saw fit to give the CEO a 47% pay rise without a shred of accountability. It is little wonder that the Government refused Independent Ireland's motion on timelines and accountability.

Simply put, it stinks. It stinks to the high heavens.

The only reason I am smiling is I thought it was a very good way of sticking in the name of the Deputy's by-election candidate. We will select our by-election candidate on 22 February for Galway West.

The point the Deputy made is a very serious one. I take his support for the developer-led infrastructure. It is important. It is particularly important in rural communities where even forgetting developers, local authorities and public representatives say to us they could deliver 15 homes here or 20 or 30 homes there. If that is added up across the country, it is quite a lot of homes but we need to have the ability to put in the water infrastructure. Yes, this was done badly in the past but that is not a reason to not go back and do it properly this time. We did not have an Irish Water in the past to oversee it but we do now. I expect progress on that by the end of this month and we are engaging closely on that.

In relation to Adrigole, which the Deputy referenced, I am told that a case for mains rehabilitation works is currently under consideration by Uisce Éireann. I ask that it would assess that quickly because I know this is causing a significant challenge for the Deputy's constituents as well. Ultimately, CEOs of all semi-State agencies need to be judged on the basis of their performance. We have resourced Uisce Éireann. It has a good leadership team, we have resourced it well and now it needs to get on with the job.