Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

It is unfortunate that the Minister of State is unwilling to take this issue into consideration or have a wider debate on the charging policy.

It is wrong to give exclusive remit for the charging policy to Irish Water in consultation with the Commission for Energy Regulation without a scrutiny role for the Oireachtas whereby we can debate and make a decision based on our experience as public representatives. The charge can be thrown that a four-year plan was agreed with the troika but this is the easy way of stating one inherited a problem. Had the agreement not been in place there would have been no funding for the programme for Government for which the Minister of State is claiming credit. If it were the case the Government was in disagreement with the policy of charging for water why was no effort whatsoever made to re-negotiate this element of the programme with the EU or the IMF?