Fergus O'Dowd (Louth, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

To be fair and honest on this one, in the next Bill the policy must be clarified, in other words, how one resolves the issue, should the situation arise, as I am sure it will, of the powers as between those of a local authority that wants to do action X and Irish Water that does not want to do it.

There is also the question of planning. If a local authority, town council or city decides to develop water infrastructure at location X in its development plan, there is the question of whether the funding will be provided for that, and if not, how does one resolve that?

Those are important issues which we will resolve in the second piece of legislation. It is a critical part that Irish Water have due regard for local development plans and the IDA Ireland and Enterprise Ireland plans for industry and how a conflict, if one arises, is resolved. That all must be done in the next piece of legislation. Until then, there is no issue of conflict or change.