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

Tá an-áthas ar an AAA-PBP tacaíocht a thabhairt don Bhille seo a bhaineann le príobháidiú uisce. This is a good Bill. It is essential and flows naturally from the mass movement we have seen in the past few years in response to water charges as conducted by this and the previous Government. I believe the Bill will be passed. My understanding is that Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party support it. I also heard positive mutterings earlier from the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, which indicates that there is a good chance the Bill will be passed, which I welcome.

In 2013, at the launch of the Right2Water campaign, we heard contributions from invited speakers from France and Germany who were members of citizens' movements which at the time, in Germany, were struggling to invoke the re-municipalisation of water services in Hamburg and Munich and, in France, had achieved it in Paris. Control not only of the provision of water services but also the management and supply of water is a fundamental issue because, as has been said many times, one can live without food for many days but not without water for very long. Water is central to life. More than 90% of every living organism is made up of water. Water is hugely impacted on by climate change and the industrialisation so-called civilisation has been wreaking on the planet. This is an issue that should be addressed in the context of a wider approach to how we deal with our natural resources.

This attempt to stop water services from being privatised is crucial. We all know what happened when other countries privatised water services, including in Britain. When Margaret Thatcher privatised the supply of water in the 1980s, there were outbreaks of serious illnesses across Yorkshire and on the outskirts of London. Following the privatisation by South Africa of its water services, TB was rampant. While there have been outbreaks of cryptosporidium here and other poisons have been found in the water supply, it is clear that such outbreaks become a much greater and intractable problem when services are in private hands.

While I do not wish to open old wounds, I would like to focus a little on the make-up of the commission on water charges. The commission comprises many prominent individuals from private water companies in different parts of the world, including Mr. Bill Emery, director of Ofwat, which is presiding over a privatised water system. It is a real tragedy and a shame that there is not one representative of the Right2Water movement in the commission, a movement which brought out hundreds of thousands of people many times to march, protest and organise at a local level against water charges and the privatisation of Irish Water, a movement that has seen the vast majority of the population engage in what is probably the biggest boycott since the insertion of the word "landlord" into the English language in the 18th century. It is a shame that the Right2Water movement is not represented properly in the commission.

This legislation is only the beginning. We have a way to go because, following the passage of the Bill, a referendum will have to be held. This is the continuation of the ongoing fight to retain public services in public ownership. Far from it being the end of the story, it may only be the beginning. We do not want water services to be in the hands of global vulture corporations. They belong to the people. We hope the model to be brought forward will spread throughout the globe and be adopted by other societies.

See this speech in context