Paul Bradford (Independent) | Oireachtas source

I apologise that I was not here to hear the Minister's contribution on Second Stage but I have followed this morning's debate with interest. Senator Higgins brought her legal background to bear on the issue and expressed her satisfaction with the language used in the Bill. All we can ask from each other is honesty. I ask the Minister to confirm that it would be possible for a future Government to simply amend the Bill by removing section 2.

That is correct, is it not? I want to put it in context. I take the point made by Senator Higgins that at present, there is no proposal from Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, the Labour Party, Sinn Féin or anyone else to privatise Irish Water. I ask my colleagues to reflect on what happened in late 2009 and 2010 when this country was absolutely broke and desperately needed a huge injection of funding to pay salaries and pensions, including those of our gardaí. If some wealthy businessman who is lauded at home even though he does not pay his taxes or pays them offshore - I am not referring to anybody in particular; we would have a menu of such characters to choose from - had offered €20 billion or €30 billion for the Irish water system when the then Government had no money, I wonder how the various political parties would have responded. I suggest we would have been challenged on whether we wanted to pay nurses, doctors or teachers and whether we wanted to keep the State solvent. We would have been presented with this proposal as a way of solving our problems.

We do not know what this country's economic circumstances will be five or ten years from now. There could be another repeat of disastrous economic policies. We could reach a set of circumstances in which we desperately and urgently need €15 billion, €20 billion or €30 billion. Nobody can know what the political reaction would be if the Government of the day were to decide, in what Charlie Haughey once memorably called "the higher national interest", that Irish Water should be sold. That could happen without any referendum - it would merely require a short Bill to amend this Bill to be brought before the Dáil and the Seanad. I would hate people to vote on the basis of misinformation or misinterpretation, for example, in the belief that this Bill somehow prevents the sale of Irish Water. Irish Water can be sold without consulting any member of the public. All that would be required is a simple majority vote of the Dáil and the Seanad.