Sean Barrett (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Indeed. I propose his time be extended in honour of that.

I am disappointed this body has not been put under the remit of the Comptroller and Auditor General which would mean a report to the Committee of Public Accounts. It needs to be accountable but it is not. As the Minister of State said, it was considered by the water reform sub-committee of the Cabinet Committee on Economic Infrastructure. Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy Hogan, said it did not receive full Cabinet approval. We put down scores of amendments that would have improved the Bill, a point on which we are ad idem at this stage. We wanted National Consumer Agency representation, we wanted the Competition Authority to look at it, we wanted full Cabinet responsibility, we wanted the Department of Finance and the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform to look at its investment programmes and we wanted local authority scrutiny of it, but none of those proposals were accepted.

Yesterday, the Minister, Deputy Hogan, admitted the treatment of parliamentary questions by the Department was a mistake. He mentioned commercial sensitives but I do not know what they are. This is a monopoly with the power to tax people on the basis of their consumption of water. Why is the Commission on Energy Regulation involved? Senator Keane quoted from an article by Colm McCarthy entitled, "Watergate scandal without leaked tapes is just a pantomime". He stated:

But if the CER [Commission for Energy Regulation] adopts the indulgent formula used to date for the state-owned energy monopolies, the public could discover that this number has been magicked upwards to €20bn or more. There was no discussion of this critical issue, namely the tolerance for cost-plus regulation of state monopolies, at the Kildare Street panto.

If Senator Keane interprets that as Colm McCarthy being in favour of what is being done, it stretches the use of the English language.