Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour)

The Government has been very negligent in the way it has handled this Bill, which concerns the transposition of the EU directives on water services. Ireland has been in trouble with the European Commission regarding water services legislation. It should not have taken over four years for this Bill to reach the stage of enactment.

The Bill has been changed very substantially in the course of its passage through this House. I made the point on Second Stage that it was providing a framework for the privatisation of water services in this country. I still believe that was the intention and that in the course of Report Stage, and particularly Committee Stage, significant amendments were made which, at the very least, substantially reduce the possibility of the privatisation of water services. The Bill now contains provisions that expressly prohibit the transfer of water assets and infrastructure to private companies and there are also provisions to prevent the reintroduction of water charges. The record of the House contains repeated assurances from the Minister that this will not happen and therefore very significant progress has been made.

I welcome the provision to put in place strategic water plans. It is a great pity this regime was not in place heretofore as it might have prevented what happened in Galway. I welcome the fact that the Bill has changed the initial objective that the development of strategic water plans would be an executive function of county managers and that it will now be a reserved function of the elected members. This is significant given what has been learned in Galway and the extent to which the elected members of Galway City Council were apparently kept in the dark with regard to water services developments in the city. If the function is to be reserved, the elected members of the local authority will have to be in the frame.

I regret that the Minister did not accept the Labour Party's amendments to provide for a legal right to water. We need a legislative basis for the management and development of water services. There is an urgent need to upgrade and modernise water services, as we have seen, and I am therefore prepared to agree to the passage of the Bill.

There is an area of outstanding concern, however, that I ask the Minister to address. The staffs of local authorities, particularly those working in the area of water services and their trade unions, are concerned about the development of the design, build and operate, DBO, process and the implications for employment and security of employment in this area. Under the social partnership process, a mechanism should be established that would involve the social partners in discussions on how water services are to be provided, particularly with a view to reviewing the use of public private partnerships and DBO methods in their provision.

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