Tommy Broughan (Dublin North East, Independent) | Oireachtas source

The key part of section 7 is subsection (4) which states: "The Minister shall make regulations in respect of the composition of, and the conditions of membership of, the Forum."

That should have been teased out and probably put into legislation itself. There did seem to be a system, for example, in regard to the Central Bank's forum which involved public advertisements. Any member of the public could apply for a number of positions on the forum. At the time, one or two constituents who were interested in the increase in grocery and retail prices found the consumer panel to be very useful and one of them secured a place on it through a genuine competitive process. One can understand the reservations Deputy Timmins and others have expressed about another useless, toothless talking shop which the forum could be, in particular a forum that is not in any way representative. That is the key element, namely, the way in which ordinary householders could have been given some input.

One does not have much confidence in Irish Water responding to the matter. I have volume 1, issue 3 of Uisce Éireann's newsletter. It was kindly prepared for us by Dr. John Tierney, with whom I interacted a good bit when he was the manager of Fingal County Council and also when he was the manager of Dublin City Council. He is a fellow county man of the Minister.

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