David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I commend the Minister on his response stating the draft regulations will come before the relevant Oireachtas committee as this will be a positive step. The Commission for Energy Regulation will then define the categories of people who will make up the board and this is a positive step.

I want to allay the fears of Government Senators on this amendment as it does not exclude anyone. The amendment says we should include the categories we set out, which are householders, commercial water users and representatives of trade unions. The board will not be exclusive to these categories; the amendment merely says that these categories should be included. I accept the Minister's response that the same argument applies to the areas of agriculture and tourism.

It has been said that the Minister cannot be prescriptive but in setting up the local community development companies, LCDCs, he was prescriptive. That process meant there had to be nine public sector members and ten private sector members of the company boards. The public sector membership had to include local authority members, local authority officials and State agencies and the private sector membership was also set out very specifically. The private sector membership had to include community and voluntary interests, social inclusion interests, environmental interests, local and community development bodies, farming and agricultural interests, business and employer interests, trade union interests and other relevant local and community interests. In other words, the Minister was prescriptive in setting up LCDC boards and used similar guidelines to those mentioned in this amendment.

I will not say much more because, to be fair, the Minister has been helpful in his response and has allayed some of my fears. We did not raise these points to start an argument, as though to imply, as others did, that the Minister will pack the forum with hacks. We want this forum to work in the interests of those who use water and for that reason we want to strengthen the forum. We will press the amendment for the reasons I outlined.