Michael D Higgins (Galway West, Labour)

This is an absolutely crucial amendment. It establishes a fundamental point, namely, where we stand as regards the right to clean water. I urge the Minister to accept it, because this will enable him to respond beyond the time of the drafting of this Bill, originally, to both current and other issues.

On page 1 of the explanatory memorandum it is stated:

The Bill concerns itself only with the actual provision of water services. It does not seek directly to take on board wider environmental issues surrounding water resources (pollution control; water quality in its broadest sense; river basin management, etc.)...

This is a great pity. It is also a great pity that we will have no more than plans in 2009, not regulations. It continues, "although it complements the relevant legislative codes in this regard". There are not relevant codes in many of the areas. It continues:

To appreciate the overall thrust of the Bill therefore, it is helpful to visualise its application as pertaining to management of "water in the pipe", i.e., from the time, following abstraction, that it first enters a supply pipe to the point of its subsequent discharge again to the environment as treated waste water.

That is necessary, but it is far too narrow and certainly does not address the circumstances in which we find ourselves in any sense, locally, nationally or internationally.

The right to water is being debated abroad at present. It is being debated here. Fortune magazine has referred to water as the oil of the 21st century. It is likely to be the source of wars and conflicts into the future, although I hope not. However, internationally, in areas that have been conflict zones in the Middle East, the path of the Euphrates and all of the other rivers have been matters of tension. Much more than that, the UNDP in its report last year, which took water as its main theme, opened up a debate which it left without conclusion. For example, it discussed the right of the person to water both for life and health. That raises other issues which I will not stray into here, as to whether this right is universal, is included in the right to development and whatever.

There were interesting differences, however, even in the UNDP report. It did not have the same figure for what is necessary for human life as the WHO. However, there was a fundamental issue in the debate the UNDP introduced. Agreement can be had across the board, and internationally too, that water is a scarce resource. More than 30 countries already are in difficulty as regards the provision of water, droughts are threatening and climate change makes matters worse. However, the issue concerns water as a scarce resource to be managed. Where everyone is divides — a clear division emerges everywhere — is on how to address the issue. One theory is to first switch off the water and then switch it on with regulation, in other words to treat it as a scarce resource that is commodified. This is the practice that prevails in the leading French company, for example, which limits water in South Africa and at the same time to black residents of Los Angeles, regarding water as the oil of the 21st century, as Fortune said.

Standing against that are communities in India which are in competition with Coca-Cola and other companies as regards the volume of water required in the villages and so forth. They suggest that water is needed as a matter of personal survival, for life and so on. There is a discussion, which I will not go into, about the right to water for life. This amendment addresses the second approach. I believe strongly in the right to clean water as a fundamental legal principle. In the discussion it is interesting that the UNDP report, to its credit, spoke about the need for regular and accessible water. However, the right to water goes beyond the right of access. It is not a right of access through the market, but a fundamental right. We are either in favour of establishing the legal right of a person to water for life as fundamental or we move away from that.

I have addressed two issues. The first concerns the dangerous vacuum that is being created by the narrow structure of the Bill, not least in relation to environmental issues. Environmental microbiologists who will give reassurances on the quality of the water supply are not in place. Those appointed to water management in local authorities do not necessarily have expertise in water quality, usually having been moved from various sections of local authorities. The Minister and I agree to fundamentally differ as to whether a local authority is the appropriate body to implement the EU water directives.

The other vacuum relates to confining one's concern to the water in the pipe. What is unfortunate and pathetic about the situation in Galway is that everyone has moved into a defensive mode. The city council claims it was restrained by EU procurement guidelines which is a nonsense. The 2004 directive on procurement states:

Nothing in the directive should prevent the imposition or enforcement of measures necessary to protect: public policy, public morality, public security, health, human and animal life or the preservation of plant life, in particular in the view to sustainable development provided that these measures are in conformity with the Treaty.

There is nothing in EU law that delayed anyone's response to the Galway situation. It is claimed by the Government that funds were put in place as early as 2002 to ensure the quality of the water supply in Galway but the Department received no proposals from the council. Why did this not emerge when evaluating the bonuses for managers, assistant managers and directors of services?

Dr. Eoin Reeves of the University of Limerick, who has conducted a study on PPPs, argues that a prevailing single model is canvassed in the Department. Is this what is causing the delays? There are two sets of guidelines on the operation of design, build and operate, DBO, and PPPs from the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government and the Department of Finance. Dr. Reeves suggests — and this is not a left wing suggestion — that all procurement models must be examined on a rational basis. He points to failures in Halifax in Canada and successes in the US. In his paper, " Public Private Partnerships in the Water and Wastewater Sector: An Economic Analysis", from September 2006, he states:

It is a matter of concern that the DOEHLG [Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government] in Ireland is implementing the water services investment programme on the basis that DBO is the preferred model of procurement. This approach is at odds with the rational model for public procurement outlined above. By failing to consider different procurement models there is a danger of creating a monoculture of procurement based on PPP. The UK experience highlights the dangers associated with such an approach. For example, the IPPR in 2001 presents evidence from the health sector where a significant number of projects proceeded despite a lack of convincing value for money gains. This was attributed to the belief on the part of public sector managers that PFI was "the only game in town".

We are suffering from this in every Department from Transport to Education and Science, for which we are paying a heavy price.

Amendment No. 2 states it should be the "...fundamental right of the individual to access to sufficient, safe, acceptable and accessible water includes the right to access to water which is free from contamination that is likely to cause injury to human health". The narrow structure of the Bill, which is singularly insufficient as to be pathetic, only deals with management of water in the pipe. Management of water in the pipe can include from the moment of extraction to wastewater. The Minister is an enthusiast of local authority management. May I ask him about the continued development in Doughiska, County Galway, where I am not aware of a wastewater management system being put in in advance?

Is it not relevant to question the management of the supply source for Galway? I accept the Minister's comments about giving additional powers to the EPA. However, the EPA's director wrote to me in 2005, acknowledging pollution problems in Lough Corrib. It is scandalous that the pollution was allowed to continue since then. This is why I have no faith in the local authority's management of the water supply of the Corrib.

A great deal of time has been wasted in discussing the use of an ultraviolet method of screening. It is claimed that it is not suitable for water coming through peaty soil because it is tinted and the water supply must be slow-running. It is extraordinary how every party involved in the Galway situation went into defensive mode. Why was there not a public forum on the science of water pollution? It could have been used to discuss choosing a screening model and the various treatments such as electromagnetic and slow sand processes. Instead, the director of services is only available for consultation with the local authority members. How satisfactory is that? I am hoping sometime in my life there will be a genuine discourse and consultation where citizens will be shown not what has been decided but all the information that will make up the decision-making process.

No one is interested in crucifying anyone for a mistake but we are entitled to the results, the response, the scientific and policy options available. None of this happened which only infuriates people who are correctly concerned as to effects on their health. This problem must be managed but it cannot be if we damage the tourism industry and the economy. It is not served by people imagining that what must be done is a run of press releases to keep their defence going. Going into defensive mode, be it the Department or city council, is singularly insufficient. I strongly suggest this amendment is fundamental to the legislation. If one accepts the amendment, one will be putting in place a building block in regard to rights upon which one can move forward. However, if one does not accept it, one is putting one's stamp on a narrow version which only addresses a very limited part, welcome though it is.

When speaking about what is happening around the country, why should we confine ourselves to water in the pipes when what we want is a genuine water services structure that will be able to take the quality of water into account, properly monitor the environmental issues and, most importantly, accept for the citizens the right to water as being a fundamental one. By doing so, we will give an indication of where we are in the general development debate about water, namely, that we do not see it as a commodity or the gold of the 21st century, as it was described in Fortune magazine, but something that is essential for life itself. The legislation should follow that path rather than the narrow one.

See this speech in context