Alan Kelly (Tipperary North, Labour) | Oireachtas source

I stress that I brought this directly to the Taoiseach, Tánaiste and everyone in Government, as I said I would,. It was carefully considered, and the argument of a constitutional amendment was considered in great detail. The Government believes the wording of such an amendment would be difficult to construct given the various categories of ownership of water services infrastructure in the State, when one considers, for example, the infrastructure funded by the State but operated by private group schemes or certain publically-owned infrastructure located on privately property. A multitude of issues arise in this regard which are not easily solvable.

As was suggested during the Dáil debates, a constitutional referendum on the ownership of Irish Water could lead to calls for similar referenda for other infrastructure considered to be of strategic importance or for other State-owned enterprises.