Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Minister's interpretation of Irish Water selectively leaking sections of a document none of us read is more than generous. If it wanted to have informed public debate, it could have published the report and let people form their own view.

The problem for local authorities, until the creation of Irish Water, was not that local authorities were doing a bad job but that central government was not investing, as Deputy Cowen has outlined, in social housing or, if we were discussing health, health services. Central government's refusal to invest in vital public services, particularly those delivered by local authorities, is at the heart of many of those difficulties.

I ask the Minister again if he believes it is appropriate for Irish Water to leak pieces of information selectively to some publications in the media rather than what it should have done in respect of that report, which is give it to the Minister involved, the Members of this House and the public to allow a reasoned and informed debate. In his dealings with Irish Water, will the Minister communicate to it that it is not a good way to proceed if it wants to inform the public debate, as the Minister so suggests?

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