Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputies for their comments. The Deputies are expressing concerns which many people have. However, the Bill is to amend existing legislation, which contains a definitive, authoritative statement that no water infrastructure can be owned privately. We are amending that Act. It is not appropriate at this stage to include this as an issue because it is already in the Act.

There is a second stage to this debate. More legislation will be introduced before the end of the year dealing with this issue and I hope to be able to clarify at that stage the issues and provide the assurance which Deputies accept from me, but they will want see it in the next Bill and I have no issue with that.

If it is helpful I will clarify some points raised by Deputies. What we are doing is giving Irish Water or Uisce Éireann the power to go ahead and carry out certain works which perhaps local authorities currently do, including installing meters, as well as empowering the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, to commence some work relating to the preparation it must do with regard to issues raised by the Deputies.

This is the first stage which will involve two Bills. While I acknowledge and appreciate the points made by Deputies about privatisation, there is no intention on the part of the Government to do that. It is not included specifically in the programme for Government. We have not sold and we are not selling any networks. We are not selling Bord Gáis, ESB or local authority networks. We are setting up a company which is owned by the State. Bord Gáis is a State-owned company. There was an alternative. We could have gone for a stand-alone company or we could have set one up. However, as Deputy Cowen rightly pointed out, it was done in this way because of the skills, knowledge and experience that Bord Gáis brought to the table, as did Bord na Móna in terms of the competition between the two companies. There is no private involvement and there is no private interest. The shareholders are ourselves, essentially, working through Bord Gáis, the two Departments and the committee passing the legislation.

A comment was made about the costs. The overall charges for water at the moment, including capital and current costs, amount to approximately €1.2 billion per annum. I understand the subsidy this year is approximately €300 million. We get in €200 million-----