Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 6:

In page 7, between lines 24 and 25, to insert the following:"(2) The Minister shall, by order, enact a service level agreement within this Act no shorter than thirty years.".

We discussed this issue on Second Stage and the Minister of State is aware of our opposition to the manner in which the Government is paving the way for potential future privatisation. We are assured that this is not the Government's policy and there is no intention to proceed in that manner, but the ducks certainly are being lined up for potential future action, to which we are generally opposed. On the contrary, we are firmly of the view that water is an important public utility and, as such, should remain in public ownership.

We are proposing in this amendment that a service level agreement, SLA, of no fewer than 30 years should be enacted, that period being reflective of the timeframe allocated for public private partnerships under local authority agreements and so on. Twelve years might seem like a long time at this point, but we cannot know whether a future Government led by Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael or another party might be in favour of the privatisation of such utilities. A service level agreement of 30 years or more will kick that argument out of the ball park, as the Yanks would say. If the Government really does have no intention of privatising our water utility, then the Minister of State should agree to this amendment. Doing so will make no difference to what the Government is proposing to do and is in line with the Minister of State's assurance that he is favour of keeping the water asset under State ownership. The proposal would strengthen that connection.

I heard on the radio as I travelled to Dublin yesterday that the sale of Bord Gáis Éireann will proceed if the right price is secured. People are fearful that our water asset, too, could end up in private hands, which would have major downsides. The proposal to install water meters and charge households for water was dreamt up by the previous Administration but is being brought to life by this Government. We are asking the Minister of State to take on board our suggestion that SLAs be extended to 30 years so that the argument for privatisation can be put to bed, once and for all. A contract of that duration would send a signal to private corporations around the world which might be interested in buying up our water utility that they should back off.