Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

Two questions were taken together. I suggest to the Minister of State that he reconsider the position in regard to our role both in the World Bank and internationally. It is hard law rather than soft law because one could interpret the universal declaration in the sense that a right to water is included under the right to health. The reason I put General Covenant No. 15 into the question is that there is no capacity for any signatory to deny people access to the water they need on a "discriminatory basis". One cannot exclude people without breaching international law on socio-economic grounds yet that is happening. Contrary to what the Minister of State outlined, that is what the World Bank facilitated all over South America and what it attempted to impose in South Africa and several other African countries.

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