Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am glad to hear that the Minister assure us that this will be retained as a public entity. The Minister seems to be arguing that it is for practical purposes and for purposes of transparency that we must set up a private company with the Minister as the sole shareholder. Concerns about potential privatisation of Irish Water led to the Government explicitly including in the Irish Water legislation an insistence that it be retained in public ownership. Some of us remain sceptical about whether that will be adhered to, partly for the reasons referred to by Deputy Peter Mathews. There can be a hollowing out of public ownership from the inside when it is financed from elsewhere. If it is his intention that it stays public and that this is a practical way of organising it, can the Minister include, as suggested by Deputy Stephen Donnelly, something more explicit about it being retained fully in public ownership? This sets it solidly in legislation, lest future Ministers decide on, or are forced in, a different direction.

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