Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I did not ask about funding. Water is a human right. We have worked with the Minister, Deputy Murphy, on this on the committee. We have met the Department twice, once ourselves and once with a barrister. The Minister has recognised this. We tried to get the Bill to Committee Stage in April and the Minister, because he had not got the Attorney General amendment, urged the committee to postpone that meeting. He got six members - three Fine Gael, two Fianna Fáil and one rural Independent - to postpone that meeting. He said in July, in a letter to the committee, that he would have the working amendments to bring before the committee by this autumn. I have the letter from the Minister here. This still has not happened. After Christmas we will probably have at a maximum 40 working days left in this Dáil. The Government, when it wants to, as with the liquidation of IBRC, can bring in legislation overnight. Why has the Minister taken so long to bring forward the amendments he said he would bring forward? I believe he is trying to bury the Bill. He will not do that, as far as I am concerned and, I hope, as far as the Opposition and the rest of the Dáil are concerned.

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