Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I am making the point that the Government states the amendment offers us a guarantee against privatisation, but it does not. In fact, everything else about Irish Water guarantees that it will start to be privatised from the moment charges are made in April 2015 or whatever date is proposed by the Minister. As soon as Irish Water starts to borrow money on the financial markets to undertake the infrastructural work, the privatisation process starts. In fact, in terms of the installation of meters and the €175 million paid to private consultants, it has already started. Which bit of Irish Water will be public? The private consultants - KPMG and IBM -are doing everything, as are Denis O'Brien and GMC Sierra. We are going to get the money from private financiers, but nominally Irish Water will be publicly owned. That is rubbish and the experience in Detroit shows that it is. Everywhere else where a company is nominally in public ownership but in reality all of the finance is coming from the private sector, there are user charges and all of the work is outsourced to private contractors, de facto, there has been privatisation. That is why the Government does not want to hold a referendum because if one were to be held, we would have to seriously discuss the exact wording in terms of how it would insulate our national resource of water against being owned and controlled by persons other than the people. It could act as a block and a serious impediment to the de factoprivatisation that has already started. That is why the Minister does not want to hold a referendum.

This point is directed not only at Members in this Chamber but also at Senators who will be making the decision because the aim of the amendment is to try to get the Bill over the line with the Senators whom the Minister is not sure will vote the Bill through. I hope, therefore, that they are listening to the arguments being made in this House. I ask those Senators who have said their big concern is that the Bill does not protect Irish Water from privatisation to look at the experience in Detroit and they will then know that the Bill in its entirety is the prelude to privatisation which is guaranteed, inevitable and inexorable. That is why I hope they will oppose it and force the Government back onto the back foot on the issue. Ultimately, the issue will be decided on the streets. The next year will decide whether Irish Water, the charges regime and the privatisation agenda live or die. I hope they will die at the hands of the people on the streets, as the have done in the past few weeks.

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