Martin Ferris (Kerry North-West Limerick, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is very interesting that we are debating the Sinn Féin proposal to protect a public water supply in the hands of the people during what has perhaps been the most dysfunctional performance by any Government in the history of the State. I stress that it is absolutely dysfunctional, totally uncaring and without any concept of what it means for ordinary decent working class people who strive to put food on the table for their children and families to introduce a water tax charge. The Government does not care what people think about introducing water charges, installing water meters or the right to water in the Constitution. The Government does not care what people think about spending €500 million to install meters while paying €85 million to unaccountable consultants.

Everybody, including Sinn Féin, wants conservation but we also want our water supply protected in public ownership. The public believes in this and wants it. The history of the Government and the battles surrounding social welfare payments, privatisation of bus routes, the attempt to privatise Coilte and the breaking up of the ESB created an uproar out there. The track record of the Government is about privatising all public services for the benefit of selfish vultures who want to capitalise on them.

We are arguing for a referendum, which is what the Labour Party mentioned a few weeks ago. It is a referendum to be put to the people to guarantee the continued ownership of a natural resource vested in the Irish people. A referendum would go a long way towards assuring people and giving them confidence that the public supply of water will be protected in future and only reversible by way of a referendum. The Government proposes a form of legislation with an indication of a plebiscite. Legal experts to whom I have spoken have said this does not guarantee indefinitely the ownership of water in the public domain.

I would have thought the Labour Party by its utterances in the past and its voting record in the Seanad in recent weeks would have been supportive of this proposal from Sinn Féin. Unfortunately, that is not the case. I say that with regret because it should be in the interests of all people who claim that they are socialist to protect public services, public utilities and public resources in the public interest. Instead, the Government, including the Labour Party, has gone down the road of placating selfish vested interests who seek to capitalise on the resources that belong to the people of the State. We have seen it happen with our offshore resources. We have seen the performance of Labour in the House when Deputy Pat Rabbitte was Minister. I was in opposition to him when he defended the interests of oil companies against the interests of the common people and the common good.

The Labour Party has a chance today to redeem from the electorate and the people some of the faith it has lost. It has that choice but its track record suggests it will make a choice that is not in the interest of the people. Its choice will be in the interest of the vested interests to which the party has succumbed since it came into government. I hope it will have the courage of past convictions by standing up here to defend the protection of Irish resources in the interest of the people by supporting a referendum to constitutionalise this debate.

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