Brian Stanley (Laois-Offaly, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

In moving the Thirty-fourth Amendment of the Constitution (No. 3) Bill 2014, we seek to ensure that water services will not be privatised. I raised this issue during the debate last year when the legislation to establish Irish Water was rammed through the House, particularly the fear of future privatisation down the line. We were told at the time that there was a clause in the Bill - there is - which meant Irish Water could not be privatised unless there was a change in the law and a new Bill was brought before the Dáil. A new Government could do that, as could the current Government in a year or ten years' time.

Given that one of the Government parties promised during the general election campaign that it would not allow the introduction of water charges, neither I nor the public are filled with confidence by any such guarantee in regard to the threat of privatisation. The Labour Party ran Tesco-style advertisements during the campaign, attacking its current partners in government on their proposal to introduce water charges. That was a factor in the good showing by the Labour Party in the election, just as its support for austerity and its U-turn on water charges are responsible for its poor electoral showing since 2011.

We propose to amend Article 40 and insert a new section, which reads:

The State recognises the right of all persons to sufficient, safe and accessible water and as guardian of the common good shall defend and vindicate this right and ensure that water services and infrastructure remain in public ownership.

In doing this, we choose to amend Article 40 rather than Article 10, which was another option, as we think the recognition of access to water as a right is more fundamental than any economic argument. This is central to the global debate on water, which has only in recent decades become a target for corporate vultures and adventurers seeking to control basic services which have traditionally been recognised as public services, even by conservative governments. The Bill we are putting forward will give back ownership and control of the basic infrastructure and services to the public. A key point also is that this Bill is a guarantee that our water can never come under the control of vulture capitalists unless the Irish people decide to change that.

The move towards privatisation of water services is a recent development in countries throughout the world. Privatisation of water services has taken place in many countries as part of the promotion of the neoliberal economic agenda over the past 15 years and, sometimes, under pressure from agencies such as the IMF and ECB, which have used the leverage of so-called financial aid programmes to force client states such as Ireland to introduce wide-ranging privatisation of public services. In most cases, the privatisation agenda was initiated by creating new companies which were more fit for the purpose of being sold off. A good example of this was the Thames Valley water authority in Britain, which was later sold off.

The move towards preparing for a sale of State assets was clearly underwritten in the memorandum of understanding signed by the Fianna Fáil-Green Party government as part of the bailout of the banks and bondholders, which the current Government has adhered to. However, so far the Government has been limited in the scale of privatisation it has been able to carry out. It had targeted Coillte, for example, but due primarily to the fact that the public was made aware of what was being planned for 7% of State land, that plan was reversed. While the privatisation of water is not an immediate item on the agenda, there is every likelihood that the Government, if it engineers a miracle and manages to cling to power in the next election, or any future conservative government made up of some variation of Fine Gael, the Labour Party or Fianna Fáil, could proceed in that direction.

It is no coincidence that one of the likely interested parties, Mr. Denis O’Brien, who has already established a growing foothold in the media, has already secured a substantial contract for the installation of water meters for his company Siteserv, now Sierra, which he acquired specifically in order to secure these contracts. If privatisation is planned, obviously any company that has been installing meters on such a wide scale would be in prime position to take over the water company itself. While this is not an immediate prospect, not least because of the escalating costs of establishing Irish Water, no private company is going to want to buy any State company that carries a substantial debt burden. Therefore, nothing will happen in this regard until taxpayers have paid the cost of establishing Irish Water and are paying for domestic water, generating a cashflow. This is the plan, but it has not worked out too well to date. When the infrastructure is upgraded - costing billions of euro in public moneys - and when the beast has been fattened at the expense of householders and taxpayers, Irish Water can then be sold off, just as happened with Telecom Éireann in the 1980s. Irish taxpayers and householders fattened that company. We had a very poor service up to the early 1980s, but the service was modernised at public expense and then sold off. We are aware of the succession of companies that have owned it since.

While I do not believe the Government is planning any privatisation of Irish Water in the near future, the only fair way to prevent this from happening is for a guarantee to be written into the Constitution, as our legislation proposes. Our proposal has won wide-ranging support across the political and civic spectrum, with even some Labour Party Members expressing their support for it. Just two weeks ago, the Labour Party Members of the Seanad voted for a Fianna Fáil motion to support our position. Was that a cynical stunt - just a ploy and political play-acting - or is the Labour Party serious about this? It will have the opportunity in the next two days to show us which it was.

I urge the Labour Party Members to put their money where their mouth is and support this Bill so that it can move to Committee Stage, where the practicalities of organising a referendum can be dealt with quickly before the next general election so that we can remove the threat of any future privatisation of the water service hanging over us. We will have the opportunity to have this referendum next year, because the Government is planning a number of referendums. It would be easy to have this referendum on the same day.

It is worth noting that across Europe the tide seems to have turned against privatisation. The Government here privatised a large part of Bord Gáis, and of course the water service is attached to that company. However, across Europe, the trend in favour of privatisation has run aground in the face of public opposition. While this would appear to contradict the neoliberal claim that the private sector is a more efficient and cost-effective supplier of goods, including public goods and utilities, it confirms the historical experience of states across the world where water services have been established and retained as a public service - that the very reason for this is that the private sector was either uninterested or unable to provide a universal and efficient service. This lesson seems to have been re-learned in many European countries, where almost 200 privatisations have been reversed over the past 20 years, with control reverting, as in the case of Paris, for example, to the local authority. Therefore, it would be the height of stupidity on the part of any Irish government to reject the lessons of failed privatisation in other countries and to leave open that possibility here. The only way to prevent that is to enshrine public ownership of the resources and services of Ireland through a constitutional amendment.

Other Sinn Féin speakers will cover in detail all aspects of the current debacle surrounding Irish Water, particularly from the past week. Before I close, however, I want to make one or two points that need to be made. The first is that all the promises that were made about Irish Water replacing the old system with a more cost-effective and efficient body have been shown to be ludicrous. The whole thing was put together at enormous and growing cost to the taxpayer, including more than €80 million spent so far on consultants. What the consultants have been doing is a bit of a mystery and we have seen the cock-up around getting the most basic things right, including the billing of apartments and of tenants, who pays for leaks and so on. That is not something dreamed up by Sinn Féin or propaganda from this side of the House. Several backbenchers from the Fine Gael and Labour side have complained about this in recent weeks, and many have spoken about the failed system and incompetent record of Irish Water to date.

The second issue is the question of why people have become so annoyed with the water charges. Why, after all of the austerity of the past six years and the escalating taxes and cuts in wages, have people become so annoyed with this? The Government obviously regarded this as a minor charge and thought that, as people had swallowed all of the bitter pills so far, this would be another easy pill to swallow. However, while the Government has attempted in the past year to talk up a recovery and boast about growth and new jobs, many people in our communities have not seen this. In addition, people view this as a charge that can be beaten through peaceful popular mobilisation.

To have had the water debacle alongside this so-called recovery has had the opposite effect on people. A huge number continue to struggle, including those who have taken up work in recent months. I am aware of several people who took up work in recent months but who are no better off, unfortunately, than they were when they were jobless a year ago, which is sad to say. It is an issue that needs to be addressed. Those people are struggling to keep their heads above water, if the House will pardon the pun, struggling to pay bills and bringing home small wages of €250 to €300 a week. The Government needs to recognise this. It will come in here tomorrow with some concessions, hoping that whatever it announces will provide it with more breathing space. However, there is a growing feeling that the game is up and that the Government needs to go back to the drawing board.

The two key messages with which I want to leave the Government are these. First, the infrastructure has to be kept in public ownership. We must give the people that right and give control of this service back to the people. Second, we need to scrap the domestic charges, and scrap them for good. I urge Deputies on all sides of the House to use the opportunity to correct this mistake. The Government has gone down the wrong road. It should stop before it goes any further, support this Bill and put this back into the hands of the people.

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