Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

I thank Deputy O'Dowd for facilitating my intervention at this stage. When the House debated this Bill on Second Stage at the end of 2004, I made the point that while the legislation was unlikely to excite the passions of the House, the media or the public, we would return some day, after something had gone wrong, to consider the issue of water services and the manner in which the passage of this legislation had been dealt with. Following the recent events in Galway, people are showing an interest in water services and schemes, as well as the development, financing and design of water treatment plants. There is a widespread interest in who should build such plants and what should be done to treat our water.

Anybody with an interest in the water problems in Galway should read the transcript of the Committee Stage debate on this Bill, which took place on 22 November 2006. Over the course of a day, the Select Committee on Environment and Local Government debated all the issues which are relevant to what has happened in Galway. I proposed an amendment to establish a legal right to clean and potable water. Deputy O'Dowd proposed a similar amendment. The committee discussed amendments addressing the possible privatisation of our water services, which I understood to be the Government's agenda. I argued at the time that the Government was trying to take responsibility for water services from the local authorities. Many issues relating to water services and water quality were debated on 22 November last.

I would like the Minister to answer a couple of questions in this House. Why, in 2007, are we still dealing with a Bill that was published in 2003? Why did the Minister sit on the Bill for over 18 months? It was passed by this House on Second Stage at the start of 2005, but it was not considered on Committee Stage until November 2006. Why did the Minister sit on the Bill for a further five months, after the select committee concluded its work on it and reported to this House that it had done so? Why is it only in the dying days of the Dáil and in the wake of the events in Galway that the Minister brought the Water Services Bill back into the House? I put it to him that the Government's agenda is to deliver water services by the private sector through a variety of PPP and design, build and operate, DBO, projects rather than by the public authorities. Word has spread among local authorities throughout the country that there is no point in sending the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government water supply or sewage treatment schemes unless they are designed as PPP or DBO projects.

The Minister's comments regarding the Galway water situation are guff because he knows it was not a question of his Department allocating money to the local authority or the latter being expected to submit a scheme. He is aware that the money allocated by his Department carries the rider — perhaps unspecified, unwritten and unspoken but certainly understood by everyone concerned — that water services are to be developed as PPPs. The delay on the Galway water treatment plant is directly linked to the delays in passing this Bill, the original intention of which was to provide a legal framework that would facilitate the privatisation of water supply and services in this country. An explanation is owed to the House as to why legislation which the Government itself claimed was essential in order to give effect to the European Union's water services directives has been delayed and sat upon for so long by the Minister.

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