Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

It is a stepping stone to the marketisation of water, as far as I am concerned. I do not favour that development in any shape or form. It is the oldest trick in the book to mention water shortages. It has been used to justify the privatisation of every single asset, service and piece of infrastructure at local, national or international levels. The target is run down to the point where one can say that we need to do something which then justifies privatisation.

We have a big problem. There has been successive failure by Governments since the foundation of the State because it was evident at the beginning of the 20th century that the water infrastructure was decrepit. Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael Governments repeatedly, for the whole history of the State, have failed to properly invest in the water infrastructure. In Ireland it rains heavily and buckets down from the sky so we need to build reservoirs and rehabilitate the decrepit water infrastructure.

The Minister is setting up a company that will be at one remove from the State to charge us for water, to install water meters and get private contractors to give us water meters. The private contractors include companies owned by some of the wealthiest people in the country who received massive write-downs on loans the companies had with Anglo Irish Bank. It is not reservoirs or rehabilitated infrastructure but water meters that we will get which will enable the Government to charge people for something that they already own. It is an absolute scandal and is beyond belief. I oppose the provision because it is part of the architecture for Irish Water and an Irish public resource to be marketised.