The CEO of Irish Water parent company Ervia has admitted the utility has “come up short” in explaining the charge to the public – and in demonstrating what has been achieved in the past 18 months.

Ervia chief Michael McNicholas launched a passionate defence of the utility, saying the “failure” to explain the “need” for a water charge, and a comprehensive overhaul of Ireland’s water system, had been made worse by a poor explanation of costs involved.

Mr McNicholas says much more could have been done to allay public fears, while the utility also failed to properly demonstrate the size of the task facing them from the outset. This failure, McNicholas contends, has led to Irish Water being "characterised as lavish spending on consultants."

"We came up short as well, we could have been clearer about how unfit the water infrastructure is, how much was needed to be done to fix that infrastructure.

"We could have explained much better how we set up Irish Water in the first place, how we took some of the greatest young Irish talent and built a new, modern utility from scratch in 18 months at less than half the cost of the international benchmarks.

Every State body is “pilloried” in its first few years, and Irish Water has been subjected to “rubbish” commentary in the media, Mr McNicholas said.

The idea that enough was being spent on the State’s water infrastructure prior to Irish Water is “rubbish”, Mr McNicholas said.

“We weren’t spending enough.

“We were racing to catch up with European directives because our waste water was in such a disgraceful position,” he added.

Irish Water is an essential body, Mr McNicholas said, speaking at a debate on the Irish Water saga at the MacGill Summer School in Co Donegal.

Environment Minister Alan Kelly had been due to attend but was criticised when he failed to show, citing a diary clash.