Debate contribution: NI Water Challenges

Debate contribution by Mr Gerry Carroll on 8 April 2024.

MLA

Mr Gerry Carroll

Party at the time

People Before Profit Alliance

Date

8 April 2024

Type

Debate contribution

Business

Private Members' Business

Heading

NI Water Challenges

Assembly identifier

Official Report component 4481664

Read the official Assembly record

Text

The decision to turn NI Water into a company has been an unmitigated disaster. People warned that it would allow Stormont to underfund the service and open the door to privatisation and, potentially, water charges. Years of savage cuts to NI Water are wreaking havoc at every turn. The parties that imposed those cuts are telling us that ordinary people need to pay for their mistakes. In the past decade alone, NI Water has dumped some 70 tonnes of sewage into our waterways, which is an astounding figure. Poor water infrastructure is preventing homes from being built, as we have heard, impacting on our drinking water and leaking sewage into vital natural resources, like Lough Neagh. Most Members, obviously, agree on those points. However, what we see today is a cynical attempt to use the real crisis faced by NI Water to privatise it and, potentially, introduce water charges. Let us call a spade a spade: that is exactly what the UUP motion and those who support it are asking for. You can call it what you want, but mutualisation is exactly privatisation. It is wrapped up differently and repackaged, but it is privatisation.

I appreciate that, but it mentions mutualisation and funding models to be looked at. Mutualisation is privatisation. Really, it is about squeezing more from people who pay for their water through rates and who should not have to pay twice. It will make hard-up communities pay to attract investment from private financers — privatisation or, as some call it, mutualisation — whose only interest is to turn a profit and not in our water infrastructure. There is no denying the dysfunction of NI Water, but to point to mutualisation as a solution is no solution at all. Wales was mentioned. Welsh Water has been mutualised, and people in Wales pay amongst the highest water bills on these islands: around £500 a year. Welsh Water continues to illegally discharge sewage, in breach of dozens of permits, due to the state of its water infrastructure. People are not only paying again for their water but they are still crying out for investment in their water infrastructure. Arguing for water charges, mutualisation or privatisation on the basis that Britain has them is the argument for a race to the bottom. The motion — the mutualisation of water services more generally — is a red herring. It is meant to distract from the fact that Stormont has failed to invest properly in NI Water. I agree that the Government need to embark on an ambitious plan to overhaul our water infrastructure for the benefit of all, but these plans are not very ambitious in and of themselves. Instead, we need to bring NI Water back into public ownership. Bring it in-house and allow it to be properly funded and run as a public body. We have seen all the headlines stating that our water infrastructure will prevent the building of 19,000 homes, and there is probably a kernel of truth in that.

I will, yes.

The Member supports mutualisation, and the last time I checked, I think his party is for water charges, too, unless it has changed that position. If it has changed it, I welcome that, and I will certainly check its most recent manifesto. There is probably a kernel of truth about 19,000 homes being prevented from being built. However, where that theory becomes unstuck is that the Executive have no intention or plan to build 19,000 homes in the first instance. What we really need to see here is Government and state investment in our water infrastructure and public homes being built. Consecutive Executives have refused to do either, and we should not let today's motion distract us from that. If this Executive want to talk about revenue-raising, we are for that discussion. We should have that discussion and talk about the fact that in the North, Belfast has more millionaires per capita than anywhere outside London or oil-rich Aberdeen, but you do not hear much about that in this Building. We should talk about the fact that corporations are raking in billions at our expense, but nobody wants to talk about that. Also, there has been renewed talk about devolving corporation tax. I have heard no good argument against devolving corporation tax to raise it and make the rich pay their way to fund public services, including NI Water. We will not support the quiet privatisation of our water infrastructure, we certainly will not vote to impose water charges on working-class people, and we will not be supporting the motion.

765 words. Text as published by the Northern Ireland Assembly.

Assessment

Not flagged

Jev’s structured answers

Assessed 21 October 2026 at 09:58 UTC by jev-1.13.0 (requested as typesafe/jev) under rubric 2026.10-r9, methodology 1.9.

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