Mattie McGrath (Tipperary South, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am speaking through the Chair. The Labour Party was well regarded and respected. The Minister wants to wipe it out of existence. That will be his legacy. Will it not be a proud one? Decent people in Tipperary fought and worked for that party.

During the children's referendum, the Government was caught with its hand in the till. The €3 million that the House voted to the independent commission to run the referendum was siphoned away. A man had to challenge that in the courts. A five-member Supreme Court found unanimously that the Government had misbehaved and directed it to withdraw its information from a website, etc. The issue has never been debated despite a debate being requested hundreds of times. A Supreme Court decision was ignored and the referendum continued without any debate in the Dáil. If any other citizen did that, he or she would be locked away. Some people seem to believe that they are mightier than the law and the Supreme Court. I remember the then Minister, Deputy Shatter, claiming that the High Court had found the Government to be acting correctly. When Mr. Brian Dobson challenged that because the Supreme Court was a higher court, Deputy Shatter said "No" and wriggled with his words. Where is he now? Tá sé imithe freisin. He is gone, thanks be to God, from that office anyway. There will be many more Ministers gone because of their arrogance and hard-nosed dismissal of the public. Similarly, the Government turned the mandate it received from the people in their faces. It will be their turn next to turn it in someone's face. They are ready, able and waiting.

Even if we have a referendum, the powers, spin and big business interests can get involved. Companies are getting contracts despite not being registered. I happen to be a small businessman. I tender for works. I have tendered to Irish Water. One's company must be set up and tick all of the boxes. However, some can get a big, lucrative job without any registration. I do not know how. Again, there has been special treatment for an elite group. This is fundamentally flawed and wrong. It is a scam. Deputy Naughten's amendment would change one word. That is all we should need.

I mentioned hard water. Half of Clonmel town, which Deputy Healy, others and I represent, has a major issue with it.

That gives rise to an enormous cost for people and many of them cannot afford it. Even if they can bear the cost, it is still putting a great deal of pressure on them. It costs up to €2,000 to install the equipment that takes the lime out of the water and there is the ongoing cost of treating it every month with salt and other commodities. A huge amount of water is used nightly to flush out these systems. People's allowances will be used up after a few nights. I have referred to this issue in several parliamentary questions I have submitted to the Minister, but there has been no acknowledgment of it.

I do not know how some local authorities have been getting away with providing such a poor service. If any other business person was selling a poor product, various agencies would be in to inspect them, and rightly so. No other company would be allowed to sell a contaminated product. It is apparently acceptable, on the other hand, for householders to have to put up with boil water notices. In Clonmel, Golden and other parts of Tipperary, consumers will now be charged for this faulty product. That should not be legal, but people do not have the energy or money to challenge it in the courts. If one gets a bad ice cream in a shop or a bad beer or bad meal in a pub, one can complain and get a refund or some other form of redress. Where necessary, businesses will be shut down on health and safety grounds. We hear about that happening regularly. Uisce Éireann, however, is being given carte blancheto write its own rules and abide by those rules.

The Minister, Deputy Kelly, has been at great pains to emphasise that he was not in office when the original legislation was introduced and the President was disturbed on Christmas Day to sign it into law. The former Minister has gone on to greener pastures. He was lucky to get out of the burning fire just in time, but he will have to come back some day. Meanwhile, his colleagues must face the fire. This matter is now in the hands of the Minister, Deputy Kelly, and I do not know why he will not act reasonably and accept these honest and sensible amendments. Instead, he came into the Chamber this morning seeking to prevent this debate.

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