Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

I will start by responding to the comments made by the Minister of State on the character of the debate. It seems that some terms are being conflated or, at any rate, bloated. Last night in raising a point of order there was a reference to "fascism" and today we have heard a reference to a "disruptive debate". I encourage anybody watching to read the transcript or watch the debate we had on a very important group of amendments, one in particular and the others which pivot around it. Anybody who does this will see that it was not disruptive. The Government's problem is that it considers democratic debate to be disruptive. It considers it disruptive to raise questions. It also considers democracy, as in the case of Greece, to be disruptive. I reject the notion that any of the debate was in any sense disruptive. We are trying to get to the bottom of this matter, but the Minister of State did not help us in the course of that four hour debate. He did not explain why more money was being transferred in one step from the local government fund to the Exchequer and, in another, from the Exchequer to Irish Water, nor did he justify it.

This is connected to the point about privatisation, about which the Minister of State spoke, because it relates to the fattening of Irish Water in preparation for its future privatisation. The idea that we should take the Minister's and the Government's word that they are not going to privatise it stretches credibility in terms of our role as Opposition Deputies and the history of politics in this country and of water charges, in particular. One of the two parties in government was elected on a platform of opposing water charges;- nobody is paying them, but the Government is trying to implement them. We do not accept its promises. Should we accept the provision in the legislation, as it stands, that should a future Government want to privatise Irish Water, it would have to hold a plebiscite? Is that a guarantee against privatisation? The answer is no, not at all. On the one hand, a Government which wanted to privatise could hold and lose a plebiscite and subsequently, on the other, legally, sell off as there would be no obligation to follow the outcome of the plebiscite. Is it not the case that a future Dáil would be free to amend the legislation to remove the requirement for a plebiscite? I ask the Minister of State to come back on this point and be very clear on it. Each Dáil is sovereign and has the right to do whatever it likes from one day to the next. This Dáil cannot constitutionally bind a future Dáil to holding a plebiscite.

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