‘Irish Water should not be exempt from FoI’

Irish Water must be stripped of its veil of secrecy following controversy over €50m start-up costs paid to consultants, politicians have said.

Michael McCarthy, chairman of the Oireachtas environment committee which is set to grill the organisation’s chiefs tomorrow, insisted that Irish Water could no longer be exempt from freedom of information probes.

The move for greater transparency was backed by junior natural resources minister Fergus O’Dowd.