Rose Conway Walsh (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Metering has been done in the North because there was a change of ministry to a Unionist ministry. We lost that ministry and they brought in metering as they had intended, a little like what Fine Gael is doing here and what Fianna Fáil did originally.

I want to refer to the Fianna Fáil position. Certainly Senator Buttimer is right to say that it was a Fianna Fáil baby originally. Maybe Fianna Fáil people were there at the conception. Fianna Fáil representatives are right to say that the party did not make Irish Water. They did not have the final say on the outcome of the baby. However, we can only go on their record or the members of the family who were born before that. We had Eircom and then privatisation of that company. Then, we had waste management privatisation. We also had centralisation of the hospital services and then privatisation. One would be forgiven for thinking that they had the same thing in mind for Irish Water.

Sinn Féin never told people to pay bills.