Simon Coveney (Cork South Central, Fine Gael)

The reason that is so inefficient is that 34 different local authorities deliver water in their localities. For a small country we have no economies of scale, no sharing of bureaucracy and no delivery system that is centrally controlled.

I ask the Minister to examine some of the constructive suggestions on fairly radical reformation thinking in terms of the semi-State and the public sectors so we can get more from less or at least get more from what we already have by bringing about restructuring and taking on some of the sacred cows the Minister seems to view as being off the table. We must take these measures to try to get people back to work, get stimulus back into an economy and get competitiveness back on the agenda in a real way. I ask the Minister to examine the opportunity in crisis for real reform rather than looking at simplistic cuts and taxation measures, which seems to be the limit of Government thinking and particularly the Taoiseach's thinking.

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