Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Each local authority had a different pricing on a cubic litre of water. The Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government website shows that no matter what county one was in, there was a different price for water. This was because the costs associated with the delivery of that water were different in each county. It would be wrong for us to have 34 different prices for around the country. In the case of electricity, we have one price throughout the country and everybody pays it and it is right and proper we would have the same for water.

If we take the example of the price for water in County Kildare versus County Wicklow, one is double the other. Water in County Wicklow is twice as expensive as in County Kildare. Therefore, if someone wanted to set up a business that uses significant amounts of water, he would go to County Kildare, which has some major IT companies. There is no way one would choose to locate in County Wicklow, because costs would be doubled. There is a very good reason, therefore, to have one entity in charge of all of our water supply.

Another good reason for having one entity is our regional strategy and planning policy for the greater Dublin area, Cork, Galway, the west of Ireland, Donegal and everywhere else. We now have a critical mass in Irish Water which has a capacity to deliver, based on the knowledge needed to have regional services that will affect the whole region and allow for proper regional development. Someone made the point that there are 42 locations in this country where untreated sewage is being discharged into fresh water in lakes and rivers. This is unacceptable. Ensuring we have a proper supply of water, that it is the best available and regionally distributed is what Irish Water is all about.

Some of my colleagues across the floor have spoken about this debate being useless, empty rhetoric. Perhaps it is for them and perhaps they would prefer protests on the streets. We have no problem with protests, but it is in this House Members should make their arguments and articulate the voice of the people on the streets. For them to say there is a revolution on the way next Wednesday does not indicate to me they know what century they are in.

It is certainly not November 1916 or 1918. This is the year we are in. There is serious concern among the public and they are very worried and agitated about this issue. To articulate in here that there is no point in talking, as those Deputies opposite do, is absolute rubbish.

When I was a young person reading about some of the ideas of Trotsky et al. - perhaps the Deputies might enlighten me on this - I think the dictatorship of the proletariat was the objective of communism or-----

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