Gerry Adams (Louth, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I want to commend Teachta Stanley for bringing forward this very important and timely Bill. Citizens are sick to the teeth of the Government’s agenda of relentless austerity and endless list of taxes and charges aimed at those on low and middle incomes. This water tax is the final straw for many families. People who would never have thought of protesting have joined tens of thousands of others and taken to the streets against the Government. Rather than listen, however, the Government has dismissed their concerns.

Part of the anger and rejection of the Government proposals around water tax, which was initially a Fianna Fáil idea, comes from the instinctive understanding among Irish people that water is the most basic of resources. Many rural dwellers, who have to sink their own wells and pay for that, or who are part of group schemes, have paid for water for a very long time. They understand, as do urban dwellers, that water is a very basic need and that we use it to cook, to wash and to drink.

In the history of this State, successive Governments have abjectly failed to properly manage or exploit natural resources for the benefit of Irish citizens. They have either been under-utilised or sold off to private and foreign interests, the most notorious recent example of this being the disgraceful squandering of our natural gas rights.

There is a deep and widespread view, which I share, that the metering of domestic water, the imposition of water charges and the establishment of Uisce Éireann is all about setting up the State’s water services for privatisation. The belief is that the ultimate aim is to eventually privatise water supply. This process has already unfolded with Eircom and, more recently, the establishment of Bord Gáis, which was simply the precursor to selling off that important public asset. In Sinn Féin's view, and in the view of an increasing number of thinking people, it makes no sense to throw away decades of State investment through this type of sell-off. Any move to privatise water would, one assumes, ensure even higher water charges for consumers than those the Government is already contemplating. In the North, Sinn Féin has prevented the introduction of water charges and the privatisation of the water services, and we did that in the face of a British Tory party diktat.

This constitutional amendment Bill allows for a referendum to retain control of water services in public ownership. Why should the Government be afraid of that? Why not give the citizens - the people - their say? The Bill seeks to enshrine access to clean water in the Constitution and to protect this for future generations. The European Commission has already received the European citizens initiative on the right to water, which contained 2 million signatures urging the EU to implement the human right to water and sanitation. More than 90% of citizens in both Italy and Greece voted in referendums to ensure that water privatisation systems would not be implemented. The Netherlands passed a law in 2004 banning private sector provision of water supply.

I listened to the Taoiseach but he has not given a satisfactory explanation of the Government's reluctance to hold a referendum on water ownership. As Teachta Stanley said, Labour Deputies are on record as supporting this principle and Labour Senators voted for this in the Seanad. If, as the Government says, there are no plans for the privatisation of Irish Water, then why does it not fully support this Bill? The Taoiseach, interestingly, in response to a question from me earlier today, said he would reject the Bill and that the Government is against it, and he said it had implications for private property rights. I am sure the Minister of State, Deputy Harris, is aware of the words of Pádraic Mac Piarais in The Sovereign People, when he wrote, “...no private right to property is good as against the public right of the nation”. Surely, there is no more appropriate application of that sentiment than to the right of citizens to guaranteed access to something as basic as water. This Sinn Féin Bill is about making the import of Pearse’s words a reality. I urge all Deputies to support it.

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