Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

The Government is committed to public water services remaining in public ownership. There is no doubt about that. I accept people might be frustrated with the time that this is taking but there are risks here, as the Deputy has identified. There are risks to private wells, risks to group water schemes and risks to the operation of Irish Water itself.

For a number of months, I have been trying to get agreement around a proposed wording. In March of last year, I met a number of Deputies and I spoke about and gave documentation on the 14 tests that any wording would have to pass so that those risks would be mitigated against and there would not be any unintended consequences. From March until November, no one else was able to come up with wording that would pass those 14 tests. In the end, the Department officials came up with wording and that is what I got agreement to bring to the Attorney General at the Cabinet meeting in November.

From memory, there are probably four sections that we are looking at in terms of amendments to address the unintended consequences that we think are in the Bill. It is not the fault of the Bill. It is a good attempt. Obviously, because of the unintended consequences and the risks, we had to make sure these risks were covered.

I think we will be looking at four sections. I am in the hands of the Office of the Attorney General regarding getting the wording right and having it ready for a future referendum. It was certainly not believed there was enough time to finalise the wording, have a proper and full debate on the issues and then hold a referendum in May. We want all sides in the House to agree the wording of the proposal and we want to have a good campaign so that the public understands the importance of what is being proposed. We do not want to do anything that might cause risk and that includes rushing the referendum.

See this speech in context