Pat Rabbitte (Dublin South West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

No. I can certainly give the assurance he seeks. This is a very calculated and deliberate decision by the Government to establish a water utility in State ownership, and to grow it and maintain it in State ownership in order to deal with some of the acute problems we have in water provision and water wastage.

The purpose here is to enable it to get on with its business because key critical engineering and technical staff are being transferred from the local authorities to Irish Water as well as recruitment from the live register and outside. The intention here is that the conditions that people enjoyed in their present posts would be transferred. There is no intention to do anything but retain Irish Water in State ownership.

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