SIPTU Sector Organiser, Michael Wall, told the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Environment, Transport, Culture and the Gaeltacht that handing over water services to the private sector would be a 'fundamental mistake'.

He also highlighted the threat to water services from attempts by a group of civil servants within the Department of Environment to force the utility into the hands of private companies.

He said that despite overwhelming evidence from Irish and international studies of their ineffectiveness and higher costs the Public Private Partnership (PPP) funding model for water service infrastructure development was the stated "preferred option" of the Water Services Investment Unit of the Department of Environment.

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"Since 2001 there has been growing concern at the clear evidence that the Department itself has a clear and indeed biased stand on its preference for the PPP model," Michael Wall said.

The SIPTU Organiser said that, over recent years, workers representatives had begun to "notice a striking similarity" in procurement reports being produced by Local Authorities across the country when seeking Department funding of water services infrastructural projects.

These reports invariably sought public finance for private companies to Design Build and Operate (DBO) water service facilities.

Mr Wall said: "Local authorities were given a clear signal that if they wished to see any hope of progressing their water projects it was via a PPP and DBO in particular as the only option."

He said that the Department had engaged the services of a consultancy firm, Price Waterhouse Cooper (PWC,) to assist in the evaluation of PPP projects and that this company was also using the term “preferred option” in relation to DBO type PPP contracts.

Such evidence had not been provided to the workers.

Drawing attention to specific examples of the failings of the PPP model in counties Cork and Wicklow Michael Wall said: "We have no doubt that in future years this will be exposed as scandal and an abuse of public monies."

(CD/GK)