Trevor Ó Clochartaigh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Cuirim fáilte roimh an Aire. Ba mhaith liom cuidiú leis an leasú. I second the amendment moved by Senator Cullinane.

I have grave concerns about whether the public water forum will have much of an impact. As has been stated previously, the closest example we can get is perhaps the HSE health forums which people from all sides of the political divide will agree have few teeth and little impact apart from asking questions and trying to elucidate answers. The public water forum is going down that type of route.

Notwithstanding that, it is important to look at the make-up of this forum. As such, the amendment proposes including householders, commercial water users and representatives of the trade unions with members in Irish Water. One can see from the thousands of e-mails we are getting that major issues are being raised by different people. The efficacy of putting a group like MABS on the forum is worth looking at because MABS deals with people on the ground on a daily basis who are trying to pay their bills.

I note there is a story this morning of MABS looking into the issue of prepayment. We had a lengthy discussion today on entering into payment agreements if there is an inability to pay and on the need to show compassion to those who try to enter into them. However, we see today from MABS that it has done an invisible shopper type exercise in some areas on people who are prepaying their utility bills for other utilities. They are being ripped off by a number of retail outlets in that situation. While the retailers are already getting paid if they take a prepayment in their shops, they are adding on extra expenses.