Jan O'Sullivan (Limerick City, Labour) | Oireachtas source

This is a positive debate in so far as there is general agreement. The Labour Party supports fully the retention of water services in public ownership and is absolutely opposed to the privatisation of the public water service. The Minister has said that in the last Government we put forward two Bills, one in 2013 and one in 2014, to ensure that a plebiscite would be required for any Government in future to privatise the service. That was strong legislation, but clearly there is still a distrust. A couple of people who have spoken already have talked about the distrust of Governments and politics. We have seen plenty of that in the last couple of days in the American election and, indeed, in Britain as well in regard to Brexit. We recognise that there is a doubt in the public mind that the water infrastructure will be kept in public ownership.

The Minister referred to the fact that there have been three pieces of legislation already on this, but the Labour Party has proposed a Bill through my colleague, Deputy Willie Penrose, which goes beyond water to cover the electricity and gas transmission and distribution networks as well as the public water supply and waste water treatment services. The Bill provides that all those services shall be maintained in public ownership. We published the Bill some time ago. We believe that the provision must extend to other networks, including gas and electricity because we saw the Eircom debacle, which was a lesson to all of us that we need to ensure that we protect our public infrastructure with regard to vital services. We have some concerns about the Bill before the House, one of which is that waste water treatment services are not specifically referred to in the Bill. Having said that, we absolutely support the spirit of the proposal and welcome the fact that it will go to pre-legislative scrutiny and that there is an offer of the services of the Department in terms of addressing the issues that may arise in terms of having an appropriate Bill to put before the people in a constitutional referendum.

In the last few days, Irish Water has put out a proposal on the Dublin water supply. More than half of those who have spoken in the Chamber on this debate live in the Dublin area. One of the reasons for setting up a central utility for water, which the Labour Party supports because the service is so important, was to deal with leakage but also the fact that the greater Dublin area is going to run out of water. It has less than 2% spare capacity whereas any capital city ought to have 10% to 15% spare capacity. I strike one note of caution although I note the matter will go to public consultation. There is real concern in the mid-west at how removing water at the Parteen basin from the Shannon River and its tributaries and lakes might affect the environment in the mid-west in particular but also further north. Those concerns must be taken on board in terms of the consultation. While there is a real concern and need to do something about the Dublin water supply, if this proposal is implemented, any decision to release water and store it for Dublin should be made in the mid-west region and not in Dublin. In other words, Dublin should not be able to take water whenever it wants it. It should be released whenever there is an excess capacity within the Shannon and its tributaries and lakes. I wanted to put that on the record because I have not heard anybody talk about it in the context of the debate.

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