Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

One of the fundamental flaws in this and one of the biggest concerns people have is the ownership of water and whether it can be sold on. I heard the Minister say that no Government in its right mind would do this, that or the other. I do not agree. One can go back to the Minister of State's party and look at the NewERA document and the proposed establishment of the strategic investment bank which can be funded by the sale of State assets and the fact that this Government under a Labour Party Minister wanted to sell the harvesting rights for Coillte. These things were done very recently.

In an earlier contribution, Senator Byrne outlined how the fact that people think that no Government in its right mind would declare war on anyone else does not mean that we say that we do not need to copper-fasten that in our Constitution because nobody would actually do it. Ownership of water is a real and genuine concern. Senators on Second Stage who rightly called for that and supported the motion calling for a referendum did so on a cross-party basis. They were people from all parties and none with the exception of Fine Gael which supported that. This is what people want.

The Minister said earlier today that effectively the Government would not do it because it is complex. It is not that it cannot do it. If one looks at the referendum that related to this very House over 12 months, one can see that it was an extremely complex referendum that the Taoiseach and Cabinet had officials working on the wording of that referendum for the guts of a year. I believe over 70 amendments to the Constitution and Standing Orders would have been required to remove any reference to the Seanad. That was an extremely complex referendum to put together yet the Government did it because it wanted to do it. In this instance, where the people overwhelmingly want the Government to have a referendum to ensure that Irish Water cannot be sold or privatised in future, the Government will not do it. It is not that it cannot do it; it simply will not do it. I do not accept some of the comments from Labour Party Senators earlier who effectively said while they supported the motion that was within the House, they went back, studied it and were effectively told that it was not possible.