Seanad debates

Friday, 19 December 2014

Water Services Bill 2014: Committee Stage

 

2:20 pm

Photo of Mark DalyMark Daly (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Like my colleagues, I am concerned about the tokenism of the plebiscite provision and the fact that it does not address the real issues raised by people around the country on the provision of water. I do not believe the assurances on infrastructure not being sold are sufficient because, when it comes to the privatisation of Irish Water, the money will not be made in the infrastructure. As is the case now with providers of electricity and gas, money will be made through the provision of the service. The Government wants to call the people using the service customers, rather than citizens. The provision of water could be regionalised under privatisation. The privatisation of infrastructure is a different issue as that mistake was made with Eircom but an imaginative financial institution could approach a future Government on the issue of the right to bill customers and offer to do it better. That institution could offer to provide water more cheaply and take responsibility away from the Government. I am sure there would be a tendering process but, as evidenced with broadband provision, the least economically viable areas would get the poorest service. This is already evident in how water is provided in rural areas where communities must provide their own water using their own methods.
The wording of the plebiscite pledge and the Government's reluctance to guarantee a constitutional referendum on the matter concern me. The right to water is the most basic right and a plebiscite on this matter is merely tokenism of the highest order and a reaction to an outcry by the people on the Government's lack of trustworthiness. The plebiscite offer is clear evidence that the Government cannot be trusted because, as I read into the record previously, in June 2010 the former leader of the Labour Party said water is a right. He did not believe it should be metered, that there should be a flat fee or that people should pay for it. For the record, I will read the exact quote from Deputy Eamon Gilmore in the Irish Examiner of 28 June 2010.

I am against water charging. Water is a necessity. I have always believed essential services like water should be delivered as a public service. A flat household charge would be unfair. It does not discriminate between houses with five bedrooms and those with none and metering is unworkable.
Why should people believe a plebiscite would be held on the sale of shares in Irish Water, though shares are part of the assets of Irish Water? Inventive financial engineering of the kind evident on Wall Street, around the world and here in Ireland, which created the financial catastrophe, would be invoked to manipulate Irish Water in selling off its customers to private equity investment companies. Those companies would reap the benefit of Ireland's water infrastructure because one need not own the infrastructure. Owning infrastructure is a liability and having the ability to collect the money is the real asset.

Comments

No comments

Log in or join to post a public comment.