Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I, too, support Deputy Ó Broin's amendment. Not that I have fundamental hang-ups about referendums. I have a strong conviction that the men and women and local authority officials who have looked after water so well in all weathers and in the face of all challenges over the decades need to be respected and treated well. I do not know if naming a date for the referendum will do anything to help their cause of not transferring by consent by 1 January 2023. That is going apace and there is much unease and unhappiness.

It is scandalous, as far as I am concerned, that people joined the local authority in good faith, many of them joined other sections as general operatives or whatever, and transferred into water services, they gained valuable experience as caretakers, plumbers, electricians and chemists and in many other aspects of it and now, all of a sudden, they are being bullied into a job that they did not apply for and did not work for. Would the Minister of State blame them for being afraid to transfer, even if the conditions were right, into Irish Water when the model is so unsound looking? In previous amendments, one had the Minister of State setting up advisory councils and everything else. It is more jobs for the boys and not being responsible to the Committee of Public Accounts until such time as they have everything réidh. They are long enough there now to have their house in order.

I want to maintain our water in public ownership. I also want, if the Ceann Comhairle would allow me, to mention the people - the Ceann Comhairle himself will know many of them - who set up and formed group schemes. They are still operating those group schemes, with the cost of the electricity, chlorination plants etc. now on them. They are getting very few supports. What rights do they have? What of people who have their own pumps and wells, and the people who are only getting it from a stream who have no water supply and no hope of getting a supply? We are forgetting about them and we can have referendums.

Much of the other legislation that we have here is grand, but it is irrelevant to many people. There are tens of thousands of people who have their own wells. They have their own septic tanks for wastewater and there are only approximately 20 inspections in each county annually. One cannot get the so-called "great" grant to upgrade them unless one is inspected. It is another trick of the loop. Then we have the public sewerage schemes in many villages and towns in my county belching into the river causing pollutants and the EPA turned a blind eye on the authorities. I am all for clean water and all for fair play. Fair play is fine play with me. We must respect those workers in the service and the service their former colleagues have given as well and that must be written in.

As we are on amendments on a referendum, is there any possibility of a plebiscite for Tipperary to ask the people are they happy to allow their water to be pumped all the way from Tipperary right up through the country?

See this speech in context