Mattie McGrath: Defends Water Workers, Questions Shannon Project

What I do want to support an amendment, a deputy of Britain's amendment as well, and it's not that I have fundamental hang-ups about, you know, referendums, but I have a very strong conviction that the men and women and council officials look after water so well, in all weather, in all challenges, over the decades, and that they need to be respected and treated well. And I don't know if naming a date for the referendum is going to be random to help their cause of not transferring by agreement, by consent, by the 1st of January 2023, that's going apace, and there's a lot of only ease and unhappiness, and it's scandalous, as I'm concerned, that people joined the county councillors in good faith, many of them joined other sections, general operatives and whatever, and transferred into water, and had gained valuable experiences as caretakers and plumbers and electricians and many other aspects of it, and as chemists and everything else, and now all of a sudden, they've been bullied, literally, into a job that they didn't apply for, didn't work for, and would you blame them for being afraid to transfer, even if the conditions were right, into what's the Irish water, when they're so unsound looking, the model at the moment, and the model, and previous amendments, that you had ministers setting up, advisory councils, I think it's more jobs to advise, and not being responsible for public accounts at such time, everything really, they're long enough then to have their house in order, so I do want to maintain all the water in public ownership, but I also want to, if you'll know me, to mention the people, you know many of yourself, the people that set up and formed group schemes, and they're still operating those group schemes, and the cost of electricity, and everything else now, and the formation plants, and everything, they're getting very little supports, and they're out there, and they, what rights do they have, and the people who have their own pumps, and wells, and the people who are only getting them from a stream, and they have no supplies, and no hope of getting a water supply, and we're forgetting about them, I mean, we can have referendums of it, and like, much other legislation we have here, it's grand, you know, but it's irrelevant to many people, and there are thousands of them out there, tens of thousands of them, that have their own wells, their own safety tanks for wastewater, and there's only about 20 inspections in each county annually, and the grant, you won't get, you can't get the so-called great grant to upgrade them, unless you inspect it, so it's a tricky loop again, and then we have the public schemes, sewer schemes, well belching, many villages in my county, and towns, into the river, causing pollutants, and the EPA turned a blind eye, and the authorities, we're all for clean water, and all for fair play, and fair play is fine play about me, so we must respect those workers in the service, and their service, their former colleagues are given as well, and that must be written in, and as we're on, as we're on amendments, and plebiscite, or referendum, any possibility of a plebiscite for Tipperary, for the people to ask them, are they happy, to allow their water to be pumped all the way from Tipperary, right up to the country, I am, I'm really finished, but I mean, they're entitled to be consulted too, to pump, to pump it into, to pump it into, into leaky pipes in Dublin, and I'm not against the people in Dublin, because someone think I have, but there's 50% of the water leaking in Dublin here, and when it leaks out, when there's outages, and everything else in, obviously other commodities leak back in, and some of them are very unsavoury, I have a bit of experience in this work, so I know what I'm talking about, and it's not very, so, I mean, I'm shocked that the Green Party haven't put this project to bed, first of all, by the runaway costs they're going to be, but second of all, because of the damage going through to the environment, to bring that massive construction right through the middle of our country, and of no benefit to any of the areas that is grassing through, that have water shortages, there's plenty of sources around Dublin, wells supplies, other supplies, and out in Polo Fouca, if they look after them properly, God, again, and we're able to repair the leaks in their, in their capital city, and we can't do, and we had an ideal opportunity during lockdown, there was no one on the streets, but there's no effort to do it, so, must be fair to all the people. Thank you for your latitude. I thought when you talked about Tipperary and a referendum, that you might be going to suggest that you'd secede from the state or something, so, are you sure that it's only the, it's only the Shannon water you're worried about? We're happy, we're happy, I was there to start a bit. Minister. I will respond to amendments 7 and 9 together as to concern the referendum on the public ownership of water infrastructure. Just before I go to the speaking notes, again, just to address some of the points raised by the deputies there in the notes as well, just in terms of the referendum, and, you know, I share the concerns with Deputy McRae in terms of the Shannon project, but that's not being addressed here today, but I do, from an ecological perspective, I would have concerns about it. In terms of government support for the referendum, absolutely, and my own party's support for a water referendum is absolute as well. And, I know, concerns have been raised around local authority staff and other issues, but, and, again, just to pay tribute to, as I did earlier, the Federation of Group Water Schemes. I just, just to say, I thank Deputies O'Brien, Gould and Callaghan for their proposed amendments, which require that the Minister to report on the proposed wording for a referendum on the public ownership of water infrastructure, the timeline for the referendum and other key considerations. Amendment number 7, that the Minister lays a report before the Oireachtas Committee within two months of the passing of the Act. Amendment number 9, gives the Minister one month to lay the report. At committee stage, Deputy O'Callaghan proposed a very similar amendment, which gave the Minister six months after the passing of the Act, to provide the report on the wording and the timeline of such a referendum. This amendment was rejected by the Committee on Housing, Local Government and Heritage. Unfortunately, I cannot accept these two amendments, as do not come within the scope of this bill. As you know, this is a technical bill to separate Ishka Eran from its parent company, Airvia. I can, however, advise deputies that Minister Dar O'Brien expects to be in a position to bring forward definitive proposals on a referendum on water ownership for consideration by Government in the near future. The Government's vision for a world-class public water system in Ireland, based on the full integration of water services in a national water services authority, is set out in the Policy Paper on Water Sector Transformation, published February 2021. Public ownership is central to the vision and is already legally guaranteed. No change to state ownership of Irish water is currently possible without majority support in a plebiscite of the people in line with the Water Services Act by 2014. In the context of engagement at the Workplace Relations Commission on a framework for the future delivery of water services, the Department hosted parallel engagement with unions on a number of policy matters of relevance to workers, including a referendum on water ownership. A paper entitled Irish Water Transformation, the wider policy context, was shared with unions on the 18th of July 2022. This paper reflects the engagement outcomes and is available to members at the Oireachtas Library. This paper sets out the planned approach to bring forward a referendum proposal on water ownership for consideration by Government in conjunction with the anticipated recommendation of a proposed referendum on housing from the Housing Commission. So we can't be clear that the commitment is there. It's there in writing in the Irish Water Transformation Policy document. It's there from Government. We are given that commitment that a referendum will take place in relation to water and housing. I know, and, you know, the concerns raised by Deputy Callan around what happened in other countries around structural adjustment programs. That's not the case here. We have, you know, even as it is, there is no possibility of changing the state ownership of Irish water without a plebiscite. So, again, just to give those assurances to members. Go raibh maith agat.