Marie Louise O'Donnell (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I voted to have the Bill read but I did not vote on the Bill. I wish to point out to other Senators that if they intend to quote me they should quote me correctly.

I think we should preserve our water, purify our water, supply our water and pay for our water. I have said this from the beginning. I also think it should be fair, just and affordable and it should be ours. This is very important to me, because it is the argument I made here a month ago about it being ours and nobody else's. I have researched the World Bank and the way it walked into countries all over the world and, in order to help them pay off their debts, took their water. Some countries were left without water and some were left with a trickle; some were left with cholera; some were left badly supplied, while others had to repay fortunes to the World Bank to re-nationalise their water. It was vulture funds, bank speculators and corporations who did it, and they beggared the poor. Today, large companies own 34% of water. This is an extraordinary statistic. The World Bank rushed in to congratulate the multinationals in Argentina, but the government in the end had to re-nationalise.

When I hear the word "privatisation", I am apoplectic. I am in four minds about this Bill. I understand we have to pay for water but I do not understand the way it was set up, which was so outrageously bad that Noddy and Big Ears and some people in Toytown would have done a better job of it. I understand that what the Minister had to take was a poisoned chalice and I know what he had to try to realign. I know he made some attempt with regard to a plebiscite but I want him to explain to me the watertight nature of the plebiscite. I want him to explain to me the legality of the plebiscite. I know that it is at least something, because I can tell the House about the last legalisation with regard to Irish Water, which was so wanton and so loose that it could have been changed overnight. I want to know where does the Irish public and public ownership stand in relation to section 2, which provides for a plebiscite on ownership of Irish Water. That is where I stand and fall on how I vote. That is what I have to be convinced of. I know we have to pay. I would prefer if we were metered and I know that will come into play in 2019 or before. I agree with paying for water and with the conservation, purification and supply of water. However, things were done very badly. In all my days of working in the public sector and with the public, I have never been as upset and abused - as I know the Minister has been - on all kinds of social media. That is the game, and as a public figure one cannot hide from it. However, many of the people who write and e-mail are correct. This is very difficult. While I know that, generally speaking, the Government is trying to clean up the pipes and clean up supply, clean up effluent, clean up waste management and create a great supply, the way it has gone about it has absolutely undermined the trust of the Irish people, to the point at which they are not even listening now to any form of reasonable argument, and I do not blame them.

I need the Minister to convince me that the plebiscite will work, will be watertight and cannot, as some Senators have suggested, be realigned like the lottery was realigned overnight and given to Camelot and the teachers of Canada. I was a lone voice in the wind on that issue. I continue to hold to the idea that water should be retained in public ownership. Some people think this is not as important as the charges but it is important to trust something that we can own and develop into a world class service over the next 30 years. I would come closer to believing in it if I thought it was ours and that we could take pride in it. In the Netherlands, one would nearly be jailed for mentioning privatisation because it is so watertight. If the Minister can convince me that the same will apply here, I might be able to take the abuse with a little bit more heart.