Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am pleased to be able to contribute. I support the amendments, which the Minister seems hell bent on rejecting. He did not even want this debate. We went through two or three interactions with the Ceann Comhairle at the commencement of the debate. Thankfully, we are discussing it.

Where many aspects of this Bill are concerned, but especially these amendments, I plead with the Minister to listen to people and not to couch words in the legislation to give him an "out" or wriggle room. From the outset, this issue has been a fiasco. When the Minister was appointed, he promised us that he would sort it out after taking two weeks or however much time he needed to deal with all of the issues, but he has not done so because greater powers are at work in the interests of privatisation.

In fairness, the Minister did not oppose the Water Services (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill that I introduced last week. Obviously, it must wait in the queue, but the Minister could have accepted it in the interests of being honest with people and showing them that he was meaningful and trustworthy. He did not. Nor has he done so in this legislation. It is all spin and talk. There will be no block to a future Government selling Irish Water - the real story is that this is being readied - at the behest of the troika or someone else.

My clear understanding is that we have an explicit derogation from Europe as regards charging for water. I do not know why no Minister will answer that question. I hope that the Minister present will. The derogation will be removed in early January 2015. We are crucified with different types of European legislation, but we have a hard fought derogation in writing in this respect.

I listened to those who were outside yesterday. Many thousands of other people could not travel because they had work or businesses to run. At this late stage, will the Minister accept the basic change proposed by Deputy Naughten's amendment? The Minister has adopted a hard-nosed approach against it.

There are boil water notices. Obviously, there will be temporary interruptions and boil water notices in areas regardless of who is in charge. At least the county councils communicated. They had the help of the Civil Defence. I thank the Civil Defence in my county for delivering boil water notices to households. Its members know the area and had the information. Thankfully, there is a memorandum of understanding with the county council as regards services. Other than that, though, one cannot get answers from Irish Water. I put questions in the Dáil two weeks ago but I have still not received answers. Irish Water claimed it had never heard of the issue of blocked sewers in private gardens despite having been contacted by Tipperary County Council. Irish Water will not allow the municipal district council to free up those sewers as the latter always did. The situation with Uisce Éireann is spin, deceit, brass necks, arrogance, bonus cultures and the worst of everything possible.

A Bill was rammed through the Houses almost a year ago and signed into law on 25 December 2013. As we all know, 25 December is a special day across the world. I do not know why the legislation had to be signed into law that day or why anyone other than the emergency services would be at work. Why was there indecent haste?

It is important that we have a referendum - my Bill contains this provision - before entering into any sale process or public-private partnership. I went that far. It is a simple proposal. The people will accept nothing less because they do not trust this or future Governments, whatever the composition. A Government might be forced, as happened on the night of the bank guarantee. I have said it hundreds of times - I could make a record - that I was forced to vote for that. It was the biggest mistake of my life because we were told lies and were bullied by other powers. The same could happen in this instance and we would use it as an excuse. Catch me once, it is my fault. Catch me twice, it will be very serious if it happens. The people will not accept it. They want Irish Water disbanded. The Minister is facing them down, but he will have to meet them sooner rather than later. As I stated recently, they will be able to deal with him one to one. They will write his epitaph. He spoke of his legacy on the evening he launched his changes in the Chamber. It will be some legacy. It will be an epitaph written by the people through a rejection of the policies-----

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