Pádraig Ó Céidigh (Independent) | Oireachtas source

Tá sé deas an tAire a fheicéal anseo. I commend the Minister and his Department on their work on drafting the Bill. It reflects very closely the recommendations of the joint committee. From my perspective as Chairman of the committee, the Department, the Commission for Energy Regulation, CER, and the Certified Public Accountants Ireland, CPA, were very co-operative and supportive and made a very significant contribution to generating the information to enable us to come up with the document with which the Minister is working. The Minister's colleague, Senator Paudie Coffey, played a significant part in it, as did everyone on the committee. I wholeheartedly support the Bill. I support the Minister and his team in bringing this Bill through. I am very disappointed that it has taken so long. It is not the Minister's fault that repayments have not been made to those who did pay. It appears somewhat as though people who do what they are told are penalised and those who do not are not penalised. I am really disappointed and surprised at some of the political parties who decided to play political football on the matter. It is far too important for that. It has nothing to do with politics. It is about people's health. My view from the beginning was that it was all about health. From my engagement with the Department, the CER, Irish Water and so on, that was also their attitude.

The public utility, Irish Water, will be one that we will be very proud of in time. Let us give it space to grow and develop. It had a very difficult induction period, so let us support it now. I ask the media to give it some space. It will take five or six years to turn this around but I believe its CEO, Jerry Grant, and his team will get there.

I am very encouraged to understand that we appear to be meeting the EU water directive framework. I had some concerns on this but I understand there is a comfort factor, at the moment at least, in relation to the framework, which is very important to us in every way.

This is a public utility and it will remain in public ownership. That was the first recommendation that we made as a committee in our document. There is a Bill currently at Committee Stage on that. I believe it will be heard in December, and the committee supports that.