David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I move amendment No. 45:

In page 14, to delete lines 26 to 34.

This is one of those peculiar amendments Sinn Féin has drafted to enable Members to restate their opposition to the establishment of Irish Water. In essence, the amendment seeks to eliminate completely from the Bill the memorandum and articles of association of Irish Water. The more one hears from the Minister of State and the Government, the more one hears the responses to all Members' questions in this House and the more one sees of the Bill, the more and not less concerned one becomes. I genuinely believe a quango will be established that will take valuable assets from local authorities but that will not take all the liabilities and which eventually will be fattened up and prepared for privatisation. The Minister of State has indicated this is not the intention and that privatisation is not contemplated in the Bill. He is correct, of course, because one does not write into a Bill the intention to privatise something at some point in the future. However, the Bill puts it into the hands of three Ministers, namely, the Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government and the Minister for Finance. At some point in the future, a Government may wish to sell off Irish Water and Members have taken note of what is happening to Bord Gáis Energy and so on. It is a very real possibility that at some time in the future, Irish Water will be sold off. In a number of his previous responses while discussing water charges, the Minister of State referred to the obligation on Irish Water to be a profitable company. This is the kind of language one hears when semi-State bodies are being fattened up for privatisation, that is, one first must make them profitable. The same was true in respect of bin charges and waste collection. Such functions were under the auspices of local government but when charges were introduced, the service was no longer subsidised but became something for which people were obliged to pay. Once the charge was introduced and became a reality, it was not very long before almost every local authority in the State privatised the service and dispensed with it from a local authority perspective. Consequently, there is a real chance this will happen with Irish Water at some time in the future.

To revert to the point about charges, which will be under the remit of Irish Water, the Bill reads:

Irish Water may, from time to time, and shall when so directed by the Commission, prepare and submit to the Commission a plan ... [this being a] “water charges plan” ... for the charging of customers for the provision of water services.

As the Minister of State clarified in his previous contribution, this is the only opportunity Members will have to support or not support a water charges plan or to support or not support water charges. There will be no supporting legislation and no new legislation. In essence, if Members pass this Bill, thereby giving the power and the responsibility for the framing of water charges plans and, in consequence, water charges, to the commission and to Irish Water, it will not return to this House. Members may well have debates and may well have discussions - I am sure they will, once it becomes a reality - but they will not be able to vote on the details or the specifics thereof. As Sinn Féin Members have stated throughout the debates on this Bill, this is asking Members to take a major leap of faith and, in effect, to buy a pig in a poke. Members will not know how much free water will be given to individuals, how people will be protected or whether there will be an inability-to-pay clause. In fairness to Senator Landy, in his contribution he supported the idea that low income families obviously should be protected. Nevertheless, he also appeared to be of the understanding that this measure would be reverting to Members by way of legislation. This will not be the case because this is Members' only chance either to support or not support water charges or the giving of power to Irish Water.

This is the reason I have tabled this amendment. Sinn Féin simply does not buy into the concept of Irish Water. It is not in favour of putting in place a new quango or of taking assets, power and responsibility from local government to set up a new quango, which will have a board, which will be filled by all sorts of staff at the top and which will control the provision of vital water services. Eventually, I believe it will be privatised like many other State companies and semi-State companies have been. There are genuine concerns as to how Irish Water will take shape in practice, some of which were rehearsed yesterday and which have been expressed by the city manager in Dublin. People have real concerns, both at official level and at elected representative level in local government, on how Irish Water will work in practice. In the context of a number of amendments tabled yesterday, Sinn Féin Members asked the Minister of State to suspend the Bill and to hold off on its passage until the Government gets its act together because I do not believe this is legislation Members can support. If Members will pardon the pun, the Minister of State should pull the plug on the Bill until such time as the concerns shared by many are addressed fundamentally. Thereafter, the Minister of State should return with a Bill Members can support.

Were the Minister of State to return with a fresh, new Bill that provides Members with the information they require on how all this will work out and in which the mandate is given to the elected representatives in the Dáil and the Seanad, not to a third party as this Bill does, as well as asking Members to take a leap of faith, Members might be in a position to support the Bill. However, Sinn Féin will not support the Bill when Members essentially are being asked to shoot in the dark. Members want to be able to support the Bill when they know precisely how this will affect the people outside this Chamber whom they represent. Even some Government representatives are of this view, even if they do not express it publicly in this Chamber. I have seen reports of how councillors from Fine Gael and the Labour Party at local authority meetings throughout the State are very exercised and concerned about the establishment of Irish Water. Moreover, they are making many of the points I am making and which other Senators have made in respect of the lengthy debates in this House. To be fair, it is not simply my party that has concerns, as people outside this House, ranging from local authority managers to members of Fine Gael and local government representatives, also have concerns. Consequently, for all these reasons, I have tabled this amendment, which I again intend to press to a vote, because I cannot support the progression of the Bill and certainly cannot support the establishment of Irish Water.