Darragh O'Brien (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Yesterday, you guys voted against lone parents and transplant patients. There is, therefore, no way of knowing the depths to which you will not crawl. That is the reality.

It is a fact that the Government has tagged on the last few sections to the Bill outlining the further changes it must make in the operation of Irish Water. This section deals with registration with Irish Water and some serious issues in landlords passing on tenant details to Irish Water and in terms of who will be a customer of Irish Water. I have no difficulty with the concept of charging for water for conservation purposes, but the Government has brought in this measure as a tax to try to generate revenue. As it has made such a hames of it, this year it will lose about €35 million in collection, while it has wasted about €785 million since last year in the establishment of this super-quango against all of the advice it was given at the time. The irony is not lost on me that it is a Labour Party Minister who has actually been sent to do Fine Gael's bidding because at least Fine Gael was clear about what it wanted to do. It, effectively, wanted mass privatisation of State bodies. That is what is going to happen further down the track, which means that the Government will sell Irish Water as an entity. We have committed to scrapping it and we should do so as currently constituted.