David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I do not intend to draw upon the Seanad a response from the Senator in question so I will leave it at that.

We need to reconvene the debate. I accept the Minister came to the House, spent time with us and made an open statement, but we did not have an opportunity to question him. It is not the fault of the Leader and it is not my fault, but we need to have another debate. Everybody accepts there is huge frustration and anger. We can disagree on many aspects of water services but we should at least have a respectful debate in the House and be in a position to question a Minister.

There seems to be agreement, at least on the face of it, on the area of public ownership of water. I cannot understand for the life of me why the political system as an entity cannot agree on how best to proceed on the issue. I commend the Labour Party on supporting the motion tabled yesterday. Next week, Sinn Féin will table a constitutional amendment Bill in the Oireachtas. I do not know whether the Government will support it. Whatever about the Bill, surely it is within the ability of all of the political parties to come up with a framework to protect the future of our water services. This is a question I would have put to the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, yesterday. I respectfully ask the Leader to reconvene the debate in the coming weeks because our questions have not gone away and will need to be answered.