Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin (Cavan-Monaghan, Sinn Fein)

In supporting the motion I wish to address two main issues: first, access to water as a basic human right that is essential for life and health; and, second, the democratic right of the Irish people to determine how we should deploy our own resources and how we should pay for them.

The former United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan has stated: "Access to safe water is a fundamental human need and, therefore, a basic human right." On 30 September last year, the United Nations Human Rights Council, which is responsible for mainstreaming human rights within the UN system, adopted by consensus a resolution affirming that water and sanitation are human rights. Recalling the recent adoption of a similar resolution by the UN General Assembly, the resolution adopted by the Human Rights Council took an important further step in affirming that "the human right to safe drinking water and sanitation is derived from the right to an adequate standard of living and inextricably related to the right to the highest attainable standard of physical and mental health, as well as the right to life and human dignity".

We are fortunate in Ireland in that we have a more than adequate supply of water to meet all our individual and communal needs and to sustain highly productive agriculture and industry. Millions across the globe are faced with water shortages and the massive problems for human health and economic development that water poverty brings. The resources to address that form of poverty are available globally, as they are to address poverty in all its other forms. In Ireland, we also face challenges in ensuring that all our population centres, both urban and rural, are adequately supplied. I pay tribute to those across the country who are involved in group water schemes, especially those in my constituency with whom I am most familiar. Provision must be made - incrementally, if required - to relieve rural dwellers of the cost of paying for their domestic supply. All citizens, be they rural or urban dwellers, must be treated equally.

The motion focuses on water supply and water services as they affect the majority of the population. This is a well-balanced motion which recognises that water is a valuable resource that is expensive to treat and distribute and that everyone has a duty to conserve it. The Government, on behalf of the people, has a duty to guard and conserve water as one of our most precious resources. It also has a duty to ensure that people's right of access to water is vindicated. The Government can do neither of these things - indeed, it abandons its duties - when it places this resource in the hands of profit-driven corporations. That is the thrust of this Government's policy.

The Fine Gael and Labour parties are promoting the creeping privatisation of our most vital resource. This is evidenced by their preference for design, build and operate contracts with private companies in the area of water production and treatment services. If persisted with, this policy will lead to ever greater financial burdens on those least able to afford them. As with any privatisation, the bottom line is profit margin. Citizens will simply be required to pay more for basic utilities in order to ensure a profit for the corporations. When these ventures fail, the State will be obliged to foot the bill. The utilities to which I refer should remain in public ownership, paid for on the basis of progressive taxation, and should be provided to all as a right and maintained as basic infrastructure essential for economic and social well-being and development. The motion rightly points out that the money to be spent on water metering could instead be used to upgrade our inadequate water infrastructure in which successive Governments failed to properly invest.

I want to cite another water-related health issue. In reply to a parliamentary question last week, the Minister of State at the Department of Health, Deputy Shortall, stated that approximately €4.78 million was spent in 2010 alone on the compulsory fluoridation of public water supplies in this State. Of this, €1.36 million was spent on hydrofluorosilicic acid, the chemical used for fluoridating water, €2.28 million on operational costs and €1.14 million on capital costs. The Minister of State said the Government has no plans to discontinue the policy of fluoridation. I deplore this position because there is sharp disagreement among scientists and clinicians regarding the fluoridation of water. While such doubt and dispute exists, fluoride should not be forced into public drinking water as it is by law in this State, which is one of the few nations in the world to do so. The Government should give people choice in this matter and save money by ending fluoridation.

As previous speakers indicated, the Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and leader of the Labour Party, Deputy Gilmore, has an interesting record on the issue of water charges. In the 1980s he stated that "water charges are just another tax on workers". Shame on him and his colleagues if they reverse one of the age-old mores of the Labour Party. I urge all Members, particularly those in the Labour Party, to support the motion tabled by the Sinn Féin Deputies.

See this speech in context