All Irish Water decisions should come under FoI, says O’Dowd

All decisions taken by Irish Water, including those around its establishment, should come under the Freedom of Information Act, according to Minister of State for Natural Resources, Fergus O'Dowd.

Mr O'Dowd made his comments in an interview this afternoon during which he was questioned about this week's revelation by John Tierney, chief executive of Irish Water, that €50 million has been spent on consultancy fees.

He said the consumer was "at the heart" of the legislation drawn up to create Irish Water and can expect full accountability regarding costs associated with the creation of the Bord Gáis subsidiary,

Mr Tierney is due to appear before the Oireachtas environment committee on Tuesday to address concerns raised about the payments.

“The legislation means that Irish Water (representatives) are going in on Tuesday of next week into the Oireachtas committee to deal with all of the questions that arise from John Tierney’s statement,” Mr O’Dowd said.

“There is also a commitment that there will be accountability to the consumer and the Oireachtas in terms of the Freedom of Information legislation that that will apply to Irish Water.”

“There is nothing hidden here, there is nothing the public cannot find out,” Mr O’Dowd said.

While Irish Water was only established as a legal entity on January 1st, Mr O’Dowd said he expects that the FOI would be retrospective. This means it would apply to decisions made in 2013 regarding the hiring of consultants.

"I would expect it to be - I can't see why it wouldn't be. What would be the point in not having it retrospective," he told RTÉ.

Speaking this afternoon, committee chairman Michael McCarthy said Mr Tierney and his colleagues will be asked about the €50 million spent on consultant’s fees.

Detailed responses will also be sought on who sanctioned the expenditure and whether the Minister and the Cabinet were briefed.

The Labour Party TD said he hoped the argument of commercial sensitivity would not be used by Irish Water representatives to avoid answering questions.

“I do hope Tuesday’s meeting will be full and frank - I don’t want to see any stonewalling or avoiding answering questions,” he said.

Fianna Fáil called on the Government to back its Dáil motion to have Irish Water included under the FoI Acts.

“Over the past few days we have seen Government representatives trip over themselves to suddenly demand transparency at Irish Water.

"These are senior members of the same Government that went out of its way to cloud the establishment of Irish Water in secrecy. They supported the move to exempt Irish Water from FoI and from the remit of the Comptroller & Auditor General, they blocked my questions about the budget for consultants and they voted to guillotine the legislation before Christmas so that none of these issues could be debated," Fianna Fáil environment spokesman Barry Cowen said.

“The sudden change of heart from Minister O’Dowd and Labour’s Michael McCarthy today in the face of public anger is welcome,” Mr Cowen said.

It emerged earlier that a confidential internal report drawn up six months after the April 2012 decision to create Irish Water said existing resources in Bord Gáis would be used in the establishment of Irish Water.

RTÉ reported the document sets out a “roadmap” for the creation of Irish Water as a subsidiary of Bord Gais but makes no reference to the use of consultants.

The report does make reference to using existing Bord Gais resources. Existing operational capacity including asset management, network management, customer service, billing and IT were to be utilised.