Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The problem with primary legislation is that it can be changed by any future Government. If legislation was introduced stating that a majority of two thirds of the Dáil and Seanad was required to vote for the privatisation of Irish Water, that can be changed by legislation should some Government in the future decide to sell Irish Water. This is not a political point to be made, it is a fact, but the concerns of thousands upon thousands of people do not relate solely to the charges but to the structure in which Irish Water has been set up and the fact that it is set up in such a way that in the future it could be privatised. It is not ours to sell.

Water is a resource of the Irish people. Something as fundamental as a right to water should be enshrined in Bunreacht na hÉireann. Next March, there will be a series of referenda on points that have come through the Constitutional Convention. I welcome that. Three referenda are planned. There is nothing whatsoever to stop this Government, to clear any doubt over this issue, from having a fourth referendum on that day. That fourth referendum would be to put the question to the Irish people that Irish Water and the water resource in this country stays in the ownership of the Irish people in perpetuity. That is what I propose today by way of an amendment to the Order of Business and that while we have the Minister, Deputy Kelly, here that, as part of the debate, one hour would be set aside for this specific issue. I urgently call and urge those on all sides of the House to support this. The Seanad will have stood up and done something real in this regard and will put it to the Dáil to initiate legislation. The Seanad cannot initiate legislation, unfortunately, to initiate a referendum. What we can do is speak very strongly as one, as the upper Chamber of the Oireachtas, and say that this is what we want, that we want to ensure that water is owned in perpetuity by the Irish people and can never be sold off to private interests.