Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

A lot of people in this House may not realise that under our Constitution we have a right to light. Which is more important? We have a right to support, so that our houses do not fall down. We must remember why the right to property was devised in our Constitution. It was to support the landed gentry, the settlers and the rich people. How many people in the street in Dublin have nothing at all to their name? Look at the people in mortgage difficulties at the minute, and banks repossessing, what have those people to their name only headaches, problems and stress?

I sincerely ask the Government to go back and defer this, it is not going to kill off the Bill. I am not going to go into the amount of money involved, the amount of the charges, the propriety of Irish Water or the catastrophe in setting it up and how badly it has been handled - probably disastrously handled - for the last months. I think we should step back from the brink and bring the proposal through the Dáil for a referendum. There are already suggestions from a number of Ministers - maybe the Cabinet is not agreed on it - that there will be a multiplicity of referenda held possibly in April or May. This could also be incorporated into that.