Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Interestingly, the Government, through this Bill, seeks to allow, in the section which my amendment deals with, monitoring of water usage in dwellings. That is allowed and is deemed relevant to the Bill and yet a whole series of amendments which seek to deal with water conservation and water usage more generally, and particularly wasteful water usage, have been ruled out of order and deemed not relevant to the Bill. To my mind that is a very political decision. One type of monitoring of usage is legitimate - monitoring which opens the door to charges being levied against individuals and households. That kind of monitoring is allowed and we can have it in the Bill. Monitoring which seeks to address excessive usage by super wealthy people with swimming pools is apparently not relevant. Monitoring which looks at water conservation in the mains, where the real leakage happens, is not relevant to the Bill. A referendum which seeks to keep water services in public ownership so that private vultures do not pillage our water system for profit, which in places such as Britain has led to a disastrous collapse in investment in water infrastructure and leak prevention, is not deemed relevant and is ruled out of order. It is okay however to monitor the individual. Do not monitor the corporations or the Government's failure to deal with the massive leaks in the system, but monitor the individual - the one area in which the expert commission said there was no wastage. Why does the Minister need this reference, which I do not fully understand, to a distinction between households of four as opposed to individuals? Why does he need the averaging of 2.75 people per household? If the charges are levied on that basis, what happens if a third or fourth person is in the house? The Minister shakes his head at that but that is how the legislation seems to read.

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