Brendan Ryan (Labour)

Last night, the other House finally passed the Water Services Bill 2003, which was initiated in this House four years ago. Better than anything else, it illustrates the priority for the Government of the issue of water and water services. It is easy to forget that a domestic water crisis is still in full spate in a large area around Galway city. It is easy to ignore some of the extraordinary remarks made.

I do not wish to talk so much about the issue of polluted water in Galway as about the response of statutory authorities. Nobody from the management of the local authorities has ever condescended to be subject to any sort of serious media interview under circumstances where they did not have total control over it. Instead, they issue remarks which would be funny if they were not so appalling. For example, when asked why they cannot give free water to the people of Galway, they answer that some people might grab too much of it and sell it elsewhere. If that is the level of imagination of those who are given the job to deal with the provision of good water supplies in Galway, then the people of Galway deserve better. Those who are hiding behind their bureaucratic privileges ought to be made accountable.

If there is a way to make county and city managers accountable, then we should have it. They are powerful people in our society who do not seem to believe that they are accountable to anybody. I would like the Leader to persuade the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, when he is before this House next week with the Water Services Bill 2003, to put some time aside to talk about water services and who is responsible for them.

I have often asked for a debate on competitiveness and I still want to have one. I have always said that I want the terms of that debate to be properly broad and not to focus in on one aspect. When I read a report produced by our own researchers which stated that those countries with entrenched unionisation tend to have higher rates of unemployment, I began to wonder where science and ideology overlap. Some of the most competitive countries in Europe have very high levels of unionisation, in particular Sweden, which is way ahead of this country in every competitiveness index. When people who are meant to be objective researchers identify trade union membership as an obstacle to low unemployment, that is why I want us to have a broadly based debate on competitiveness. We are in danger of turning myths into facts, which would be very bad for the future of decision making in this country.