Eamon Gilmore (Dún Laoghaire, Labour) | Oireachtas source

There are quite a number of things I have to correct in Deputy Martin's statement. First, Irish Water is being established to modernise the way in which the water services of this country are delivered into the future. I said, and the Labour Party has said for quite some time, that the delivery of water in this country needed to be done on a national basis. Nobody, for example, would now consider it desirable to deliver electricity on a county-by-county basis, and it is not sustainable that water services are delivered on a county-by-county basis.

See this speech in context