Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Tá mé ag éisteacht go cúramach le gach rud a bhfuil le rá aige. Ba mhaith liom a rá go bhfuil mé glan i gcoinne an Bhille seo. Ní chuirfidh sé sin aon iontas ar an Aire.

We have heard a lot of debate over and back but the basic principle around what is happing here and what people were marching against on 10 December has not changed. Although a stay has been put on the implementation of water charges, the fact of the matter is that water charging is going to come in. Once it is introduced, those costs can be increased. The water metering programme is going to continue and metered charges will come in. There is still no constitutional right to water, as has been alluded to by many colleagues here. This is really a ploy to get people to sign up to the principle. People on the streets know it and most of the hundreds of thousands of people, many of whom I spoke to in Galway and Dublin and other places, realise that is what is going on and are not falling for it, to be quite frank.

There has been a number of points made around the costs, etc., and I note that the Minister talked about waste water treatment in Cobh, Youghal and Bundoran.

Certainly, there has been a lack of investment in infrastructure in local authorities over the past number of years but the €80 million that has been spent on the consultants in Irish Water would have gone a long way to put in place those wastewater treatment plants, and Clifden, Spiddal and Carraroe in County Galway could have been added to that list.

I am flabbergasted to hear Senator Hildegarde Naughton state that people have never been taxed sufficiently to pay for water. I totally disagree with that - it is a ludicrous statement - because we are paying, through other taxation mechanisms, for water for a long time.

The installation of the meters was initially budgeted for at around €450 million mark.