Jonathan O'Brien (Cork North Central, Sinn Fein)

The Sinn Féin Private Members' motion affirms water as a natural resource, access to which is considered by most in modern society to be a basic human right, as well as the provision of adequate sewerage systems. When this debate concludes later this afternoon, however, we will not vote on the Sinn Féin Private Members' motion but on the Government amendment to it. The constant stream of so-called Government amendments we see every week in response to Private Members' business says everything about this coalition's style of governance.

The Government parties have such little confidence in their positions that they are unable to debate Private Members' motions robustly. If they do not agree with a motion, they should simply vote against it. Are Members opposite so uncomfortable to debate an issue, which causes many of them embarrassment, that they feel the need to run for cover behind an amendment which in effect is a separate motion in itself? It is about time that Members opposite found a conscience, got a bit of backbone and took the right course of action. Labour Members should do what they said before the election and support the Sinn Féin motion on water charges.

This motion is about basic human rights and the provision of a service which is vital to human life, one which all in this House must defend. It is not a right which should be sacrificed, like many other rights and entitlements, at the altar of the EU and the IMF, an altar which has become a convenient cover for this Government to justify the continuation of failed Fianna Fáil policies regarding slash-and-burn policies in the name of the troika.

Every day in this Chamber we hear stories about a dysfunctional health system, an education system that is leaving more and more children behind and a society in which carers have been abandoned. Ours is a society in which our jobless figures grow daily and where the number of people facing eviction and personal ruin rises weekly. At a time when people are desperately seeking a chink of light at the end of the tunnel, when they are praying nightly for some ray of hope, political representatives have an onus to act. More importantly, the Government has a moral responsibility to provide strong leadership and put the national interest above all else.

Instead, rather than standing up for the less well-off in society, the Government proposes to further financially crush those who are barely keeping their heads above water.

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