Oireachtas Joint and Select Committees

Wednesday, 25 January 2017

Joint Oireachtas Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services

Department of Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government and Mr. Séamas Ó Tuathail, SC

1:30 pm

Photo of Paudie CoffeyPaudie Coffey (Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief as some of the areas I wanted to ask about have already been covered. I reiterate the point I heard from Deputy O'Dea that I am not aware of any political party or Independent, elected or otherwise, that is in favour of the privatisation of Irish Water or its resources. It is important to record that. I look forward to debating Deputy Collins's Bill. Many colleagues here are members of the Joint Committee on Housing, Planning and Local Government and I urge this committee to provide that one with a remit to do the heavy lifting and technical analysis on the Bill before reporting back here. It could be helpful to this committee in its work. I ask for permission on that.

With regard to the contribution of Mr. Ó Tuathail, it seemed to me that a lot of it was based on fear, concern and lack of trust and he even mentioned the word "threat" as well. That is fair enough from his perspective, but it is important to state the following. Mr. Ó Tuathail mentioned the sale of a lot of semi-States including Telecom Éireann and others where lessons have been learned. The previous Government did not sell ESB Networks, which may be the most profitable semi-State in the country, during Ireland's worst economic crisis. If it did not sell that then, there was clearly no privatisation agenda. I ask Mr. Ó Tuathail if his fears are really that legitimate given the experience of the previous Government.

While the legislation introducing the triple lock mechanism to protect the public ownership of Irish Water went far enough as far as I am concerned, it is obvious that others do not agree. I ask Mr. Ó Tuathail for further information and views on that. The triple lock mechanism requires any change in respect of shares in water resources to be approved by both Houses of the Oireachtas, a majority plebiscite of the people require legislation. To me that seems strong but obviously it is not strong enough for Mr. Ó Tuathail and the Right2Water network. I would like to hear an expansion of his view in that regard.

I agree with Deputy Alan Farrell. Irrespective of how qualified he or she may be, no one legislates perfectly. That is why we have an Oireachtas to analyse and scrutinise legislation. While I understand Mr. Ó Tuathail's cynicism towards the Minister where he said that he might water down the legislation Deputy Collins has brought forward, I ask him whether he recognises that any Minister of the day reserves the right to amend legislation to ensure first and foremost that it is constitutional and that Ministers must take advice from the Office of the Attorney General. He might clarify his position on that. It is a function of all Deputies and Senators as legislators and policy makers to scrutinise legislation to ensure as far as possible that it is constitutional. No matter how perfect we feel we are, none of us can claim at all times that our legislation is perfect.

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