Seanad debates

Tuesday, 10 December 2013

Water Services (No. 2) Bill 2013: Committee Stage

 

4:30 pm

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Then he will know it is directly relevant to the issue at hand. If we are not allowed to make these general points in the context of these amendments, it will be a bad day for local democracy and for the Seanad, but the Leas-Chathaoirleach is entitled to his opinion. I do not agree with taking powers from local government.

The second issue I have relates to the potential privatisation of Irish Water, which is also relevant to the amendment. We should not go down this road. The company must remain in public ownership. I agree water is a scarce resource, which we need to protect and invest in, but I am concerned that we would be going down the slippery slope of privatising water services. We have seen this many times before with local authority services where the first thing done to privatise a service is to transfer responsibility for it from local government to a quango or board before eventually privatising it. It may not happen during the Government's term but it could happen down the road.

The amendment seeks to ensure the service level agreement will be no shorter than 30 years, not the 12 years proposed by the Government.

These are the two core points I intended to make. The first relates to taking powers from local government for water services and giving them to Irish Water. The second relates to the potential privatisation of water services down the road.

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