Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Social Democrats) | Oireachtas source

I support the Bill proposed by Deputy Collins. It is welcome that it is not being opposed and that it is being supported by Fianna Fáil. I think there is cross-party agreement that the water system should remain in public ownership and that it is a strategic asset. The argument put forward by the last Government when many of us pushed for this was that it would never privatise the water system. I agree. I do not think the current Government would privatise it. However, as the events of last night show, sometimes we do not know who will be running a country. Unexpected people may end up running countries and they may have very different views to those of the current Government. It is not just a matter of trusting the current Government.

Ideally, we would not use the Constitution for this sort of specific issue. For example, the ESB is not protected in the Constitution. However, water has a unique position as a result of the level of public opposition to the charges and the genuine fear of privatisation as well as foreign meddling in domestic affairs. The then president of the ECB, Jean-Claude Trichet, wrote to the late Brian Lenihan in the context of Ireland's bailout and stipulated that there was to be two structural reforms. One was that we would charge for domestic water use. It is extraordinary that any central banker would do that, but it is telling of the foreign meddling in Ireland's water supply and how we govern and pay for it. In this case, therefore, we need fully, permanently and totally to protect the public ownership of the Irish water system via an amendment to the Constitution.

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