Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be fair, I never said I would change or amend the terms of reference. Once they were agreed between two party leaders, they would not be undone. I would not like to give an impression that I ever said it would be otherwise because I did not do so. I have been up-front about the commission. I have seen some commentary on some websites and on social media about some of the members of the expert commission.

It is deeply unfair, in terms of their role and willingness to be helpful to Ireland. The people include a lead expert in the Environmental Directorate of the OECD, the chair of the customer forum of Water Scotland, a former Scottish Minister, the chair of the Northern Ireland Utility Regulator, the chair of the National Federation of Group Water Schemes, NFGWS, an academic lawyer specialising in water and environmental law from the University of Dundee in Scotland and a strategy consultant from Waternet in the Netherlands. While I do not know her, she comes highly recommended for her knowledge. Dr. Andrew Kelly is an environmental economist who is highly thought of in Ireland.

These people are the best experts in the area we could find. We searched high and low to get names. Some of them were recommended by other political parties. I also sought and followed advice from the Institute of Public Administration and the National Economic and Social Forum on the kind of skill set we would need on an expert commission, the number on the commission and the balance of Irish and international expertise. I do not know any of these people, except Brendan O'Mahony, the chair of the NFGWS, whom I met as a Minister when he was representing group water schemes. I have had no conversation with him about this. We have looked to others to make recommendations and tried to pick from those and choose other skill sets in a way that is consistent with the independent guidance we got.

Mr. Joe O'Toole is a very fine person. I have known him on and off for many years. We come from different political persuasions, and this is one of the reasons I asked him to do this. I did not want a Fine Gael person, or the perception of a Fine Gael person. Mr. O'Toole has given much leadership through the trade union movement. He was a very talented Senator and parliamentarian when he was here. He has buckets of experience in handling difficult issues. This is why I asked him to do the job, to try to pull together all of these experts and to have a political input into the process and ensure the political sensitivities were understood in the context of any recommendations they might make. I thought Mr. O'Toole would be a very good person to do it.