Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

We will have to contact a call centre if there is a problem with water services in my constituency; local councillors will be dialling 1890 numbers. Nobody has told me anything different. We will have to contact a call centre and get some kind of a response. We should be clear that the relationship will be same as the one we currently have with Bord Gáis. It is a fairly good company but it can be difficult to deal with it with regard to problems in service. I have no problem dealing with a local authority and there is no great problem in dealing with a Department because there is a line of accountability to us in the Chamber and every council chamber in the country. This Chamber, which has little enough power already, will be taken completely from the equation with regard to water and sewerage. Most of the power should rest with local authorities but we will be taking the power from them.

It is ironic that this is happening at the same time that the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government, Deputy Hogan, is telling us how he will enhance local government. The Portakabin that houses the tourist office for six months of the year will come under local authorities but the water services - which most local authorities have done a good job in providing - will have their heart ripped out and taken from the control of local councillors and county managers to be given to Uisce Éireann.

The Government's promise to reform local authorities is cosmetic. I wish the Government would carry out the reform and my party would fully support meaningful efforts. We are engaging with the Government and trying to maximise the efforts to bring about this reform. Nevertheless, we cannot speak about reforming local authorities if the Government is ripping away the core services of water, sewerage, roads and housing, which is almost privatised. Down the country, people are being steered to housing agencies, which have already accumulated large housing stock. They are not answerable to anybody in their allocation of houses and there is no democratic control. I can see the scheme of letting for Laois and Offaly County Council. Deputy Cowen can do the same. We were involved in the making of it and officials are bound to operate by that document. The core services, like water, must be kept within the democratic system.

The Government's actions will destroy local democracy and diminish national democracy. It is ruining the democratic structures in the country. Although it is not the intention, the Government is leaving the new Uisce Éireann wide open to being privatised.

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