Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

The variation should be agreed by the Government. What is being proposed for the Water Services (Amendment) Bill is a mockery of what one would imagine a legislative process to be. Fine Gael and the Labour Party, the parties currently in power, railed for years against the indiscriminate use of the guillotine by their predecessors. Was it all bluster? Did they mean it or did they not? Here is an example of an issue that is causing serious concern, that needs to be teased out. There were answers that the Tánaiste did not give this morning with regard to whether there would be public investment to assist people in rural areas with their water and sewerage remediation programmes in the same way as the urban areas were given assistance from central taxation. We need more time for the Deputies who are fronting the debate on this legislation.

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