Damien English (Meath West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I deal in facts. There is no point in kidding ourselves. People did not say "No" to Irish Water. Rather, they raised many issues on the doors and voted for Sinn Féin for many reasons - I am not sure what they were but they did vote. Let us call a spade a spade. There is no point in saying Irish Water is the main issue.

It is important that we have another discussion. Many of the issues around water have been rehashed again today and we are debating the same issues, whether they are true or false. Most important is that we all agree on the importance of funding our public water services. Everyone talks about the right to water, free water and everything else but the discussion is about treated water. This is not water that falls from the sky or comes from elsewhere but rather treated water that costs the guts of €1 billion a year to treat and pump to everyone's house. This is also about waste water and sewage, treatment of which incurs a high cost.

Deputy Danny Healy-Rae referred to people living in rural Ireland. They face high costs in terms of installing wells, biocycles and septic tanks at the start of the planning process, maintaining them and so on. They pay those costs over a long period of time. If we are going to have a discussion, we need to address that issue. People facing high costs would love to be able to pay a couple of hundred euro per year to have everything dealt with and not worry about water. They do not have that choice but they, like everybody else, pay tax. If we are to be fair, we need to address that issue in debates. As I have said before, I accept that people have different issues regarding water and that is fair enough. However, let us have a factual debate and tease out all of the different bits and pieces.

Deputy Catherine Murphy touched on the core of the issue when she said this was never really just about water. She is probably right. The timing of the introduction of water charges coincided with many other issues. One could not have chosen a worse time to introduce any kind of water charges, no matter where one stood on the issue. Everyone was under pressure and had bills and concerns. There was a genuine fear on the part of many people who went on protests and campaigned against water charges that bills would increase and perhaps would be €1,000. I totally accept that there were genuine fears. If water charges are to be implemented, there will have to be caps. Others went on protest marches for different reasons. There was a lot more to it than water. In the process that was set out over the past couple of months and which will continue until March 2017, we will have a conversation about water.

In this motion, Sinn Féin is focusing on water but the overall debate should now involve a conversation about the provision of water. We need to discuss whether we charge, how much we charge and so on. We should make an informed decision in the House on that topic alone next March, April or whenever the issue comes up for debate. We should not bring in all of the other reasons people in the House campaigned against Irish Water. Those reasons involved politics as opposed to ideology.

I accept that some in Sinn Féin have a genuine belief, as opposed to a seeing it as a political issue, but many others in the House have used this issue for political purposes. That is wrong. At the end of the debate, next March or April, every person in the House should make an informed decision on water, including conservation, delivery and wastewater, and vote on that. It is so important and we have a duty to vote for the right reasons and focus the debate on the core issue.

We all want greater investment in modern water infrastructure and an improved public treated water system. Everyone acknowledges that there are problems with the lack of a joined-up approach under the old local authority management system, some which only came to light since Irish Water has taken over. All sides of the House want public ownership of our water services and the infrastructure through which it is delivered. It was said again today that we need to have a referendum on the privatisation of water. It cannot be privatised without the Irish public having a vote on the issue. It is not an issue. It is factually wrong to say water can be privatised or sold off tomorrow. It cannot be.

If any future Government wanted to privatise water, such a proposal would have to go through the Seanad and the Dáil and to the Irish people for a vote. That is the law. If we need to go further in clarifying that, that is fair enough. People should not be telling lies. Irish Water cannot be privatised tomorrow unless the Government goes to the public and they vote for it.

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