Seán Fleming (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail)

In his opening comment the Minister spoke about an independent subsidiary. These two words are mutually contradictory; a subsidiary is under something else and not independent by definition. Will the Minister accept that regardless of whether the Minister, Deputy Hogan, made a hames of his role in the proposed metering of water, he will be held responsible for the possible privatisation of water meters throughout Ireland because he, as Minister, has opted to give that business to a company, part of which Government has already decided to privatise? The Government has decided to sell-off part of Bord Gáis Éireann, BGE, and, because of its expertise in metering and billing households, to give it responsibility for the new water utility. Will the Minister accept that the public will find it hard not to view this as a key step along the road to privatisation, which I accept is not the Minister's intention at this stage? However, in light of this, I ask that the Government remove to Bord Gáis from its list of companies to be privatised.

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