Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will make three points in the time available. Amidst the focus and expectation the country has about the need for new politics and a new way of doing business, there must be evidence of a new attitude and new habits to make it work. If we end up in a Dáil where we have new politics and old habits and old ways of dealing with matters, we will end up with worse results for the people we represent. This general point is relevant to the debate we are having. What is the agreement in place between two parties in the Dáil? The agreement stipulates that in a number of months' time, a process will be put in place that will and should allow a very clear vote on the future of water charging in our country. The debate and vote will take place after a process in which this matter can be better understood and evaluated legally and economically. The vote will happen at such a point. This provides an opportunity for this debate to happen at a point where we will have very definitive conclusions for the future of charging and Irish Water.

The second point to emphasise is the rationale for the setting up of Irish Water. There are two different debates here, although obviously they are politically related. One is the case for charging. A process is in place in respect of this. The second relates to the role of a utility. I know this matter has been debated here and across the country for a long time. If we look at the basic point regarding the setting up of Irish Water as a single body to manage a single piece of infrastructure as a single utility and all the other examples we have of utility models where they are appropriate for the management of infrastructure, are we suggesting that our gas infrastructure be managed in different counties by different local authorities? Would we suggest that our national road or rail networks be managed in that way? The answer to those questions is clearly "No". Alongside the debate that is clearly happening here in respect of charging, there must be a continued appreciation of how a single body with responsibility for infrastructure is the appropriate method of managing infrastructure like this in Ireland.

The third point I make relates to the impact and consequence of the abolition of charging in the future. This is a debate to which we will return in coming months and it is a point I will make then. The opportunity cost of charging not being available to fund water services in our country is not just about water. The money that is needed to deliver that water infrastructure will then be found, as Opposition Deputies are saying, from the Exchequer. This means that the Exchequer will not be able to do other things that it would wish to do. These are very significant and substantial measures. Many of them are things for which Deputy Ellis calls and campaigns for week after week. I will give him an example. The opportunity cost of the suspension of Irish Water charges needs to come out of the Exchequer. The tens of millions of euro involved in that would build more primary care centres, improve the services available in hospitals and deliver the kind of services infrastructure that Deputy Ellis stands up in the Dáil to look for week after week. The reality of this is very clear. If the Dáil takes the decision to go ahead with the abolition of charging, there are other things that the Exchequer will not be able to do as a result of that vote. These are the very things that Deputy Ellis stands up week after week in the Dáil to look for.

I will end where I began. The Sinn Féin Deputies' comments tell it all. This has nothing to do with water and how we provide water services. This is an example of old politics reasserting itself under the name of new politics.

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