Malcolm Noonan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Green Party) | Oireachtas source

I thank Deputies for their contributions and Deputy Cian O'Callaghan for the proposed amendment. I agree with the comments made. I have seen in other countries where privatisation has been brought in, either through IMF interventions or structural adjustment programmes, that it has been detrimental. That is not on the cards here. I give that assurance. There is also a commitment to a referendum in the programme for Government.

The amendment concerns the wording and timeline for a referendum on the public ownership of water infrastructure. While I welcome and share the support shown by the Deputy for a referendum on ownership, the amendment suggested is outside the scope of this Bill and cannot therefore be accepted.

As the Deputy will recall, the 2017 report of the Joint Committee on Future Funding of Domestic Water Services supported the holding of a referendum, subject to there being no adverse impact on private and group water services. In response, and in the context of a Private Members’ Bill introduced in the previous Dáil, extensive work has been undertaken by the Department and the Office of the Attorney General to consider possible approaches to advancing a referendum proposal. An approach based on protecting the public ownership of the entity established under law to provide public water services, Irish Water, has been identified as the most appropriate and straightforward approach. Having consulted his colleagues in Government on the matter, the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O’Brien, has signalled his willingness to support a referendum on public ownership along these lines.

An important consideration in planning for a successful referendum is the need to ensure proper public engagement. Noting that the Commission on Housing has been specifically tasked with advising the Government on a referendum to place the right to housing in the Constitution, it would make sense that the constitutional issues around the rights to housing and the protection for the supply of public water should be considered at the same time. The Department will therefore bring its proposals on a water referendum to Government in conjunction with any anticipated referendum on housing.

It is understood that the Commission on Housing hopes to be in a position to put forward proposed wording for a referendum on housing towards the end of this year or very early in the New Year. This approach has been outlined to unions on the referendum, on which I note the points made by Deputy O'Donoghue, in the context of the broader engagement on water sector transformation. The position is set out in a paper entitled Water Sector Transformation: the Wider Policy Context, which the Department shared with the Irish Congress of Trade Unions on 18 July 2022 and which the Minister has now placed in the Oireachtas Library for the benefit of Members generally.

I am afraid I cannot accept this amendment. I assure members that it is the Government's intention to proceed with the referendum on water in tandem with the referendum on housing.