Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday I spoke about Irish Water. Senator Leyden might have been correct that I was somewhat convoluted in my delivery but I will make it simple today. Water forms 60% of our bodies and 60% of everything we eat. It is the only reason we are alive. We cannot live without it.

When one establishes a monstrosity like Irish Water, one is not setting up an electricity, telephone or gas consortium. We can live without the latter but we cannot live without water. The initiation and development of Irish Water does not have the same contours, methods and systems. They cannot apply. Irish people do not know how, why, where, when or how much it will cost. It keeps changing. They have no proper outline of the matter and they do not know what is going on. If it is to be a public company - I am dubious about this - we have to be given a big say or it will become a private company down the line and we will fill the pockets of the vulture capitalists. That would be like selling off our forests, and we will end up selling off our beaches.

I want the Minister for the Environment, Community and Local Government to come in here. He wanted the job very badly and I hear he has marvellous and robust talents. I would like to see his talents on display in this House while he answers our questions. I am not interested in whether he had been on RTE, BBC or Newstalk to tell the people what, why, when and where. He should come into this House to tell us, as elected or selected Members, what is going on. I call on him to come here to tell us what is going on in Irish Water. A good Government cannot allow itself to be undermined on a daily basis by the performance of Irish Water. Water is our right and we cannot live without it. It is not like gas or electricity. It is an extraordinary element in our lives but it is being battered around. With all these consultants, vulture capitalists and profit making, it seems to me that is what it is becoming. The Minister was a very robust Member of the Lower House.

He should come to this House and display that robustness, not in front of the television cameras but before the Oireachtas and the Members of the Seanad. That is what the Seanad is supposed to be about. All Senators - this is not an anti-Government-----