Eoghan Murphy (Dublin Bay South, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I will be brief in my concluding remarks. I thank Senator Ó Céidigh for the incredible and important work he has managed and steered by chairing the committee. His public service has not only aided the stability of our politics and political system at the moment, given that we are in a minority Government, but has also aided the stability of our water system and future investment. It has put them in a safe and strong place and this is as a result of the good work performed by him and his committee. I thank the Senator for that.

We can get into the details of the amendments to different sections of the Bill next week when we take it through Committee and Report Stages. I hope we can do that next week. The payment of refunds is dependent on the legislation passing both Houses of the Oireachtas. If we can do that next week, we will get more refunds paid out before Christmas. Not every refund will be paid, unfortunately, but there will be a service available on the website whereby people can find out when exactly they are getting a refund.

For those who have paid their water charges in full, the amount is €325, which is not an insubstantial amount of money. They will want to know when that is coming in to enable them to make plans around that on how they might spend it or what they might choose to do with it. It is important to get the legislation passed quickly and that there are no unnecessary delays like those we have seen in the passage of the Bill through the Lower House, unfortunately.

In essence, the Bill is a conservation measure - it is important to note that. There will be a need for conservation measures in future as we change our water use and practices. The water forum and advisory bodies will be in place to advise not only me, but the Oireachtas on how best to pursue further conservation measures in future.

Reference was made to public ownership of Irish Water, water services and infrastructure as well as to water as a public good. Legislation is coming to the Oireachtas joint committee next week on the possibility of a referendum to change the Constitution and put that safeguard in place. In any event, given the structure of Irish Water today and as it will exist once this legislation has passed, the idea of private ownership of water is basically impossible. I have no problem with a referendum being put to the people about public ownership of water in the country, but I would caution people that we need to have other referendums that are, I believe, far more important and pressing. I do not believe we would be doing good service to the public if we were to proceed before those referendums with a referendum on public ownership of water, which is not necessarily essential at this point. While we will be debating that in committee next week, I wish to remind people that other referendums are considered more important by the public, and perhaps they should proceed before we have a referendum on public ownership of water.

I thank Senators for their contributions and I look forward to the further Stages of the Bill next week.