Bríd Smith (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I do not know if the Taoiseach is doing a Mary Poppins on this but he is certainly not answering my question. I asked him about the structure and formation of the commission and I am objecting, on behalf of many people, to those I listed who were appointed to it because they are not impartial but are in fact partial towards a little bit of privatisation and a lot of charges. My question is about the structure and the composition of the commission itself, including the non-partial Joe O'Toole, who is going in to chair it with his own set views on it.

I know of some citizens who applied to be considered for this commission, some of whom have considerable expertise in the environment, waste management and water management and they were not even given the respect or the decency of an explanation as to why their applications failed or that they would not be considered suitable. The commission is loaded with academics and people from outside the jurisdiction who are unelected and not representative of the people in this country who voted, marched, protested and boycotted en masseto have a different system of water services that is publicly funded through progressive central taxation and over which they have some decision making power. We are getting a commission that has already made up its mind that it will give us more of the same.

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