Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called for a referendum on the ownership of Irish Water to be held to ensure that Irish Water remains in public ownership.<\/p>\n
Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said:<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Oireachtas is still debating our water services a year after the election, when a majority of the TDs elected to D\u00e1il specifically stated their opposition to water charges.<\/p>\n
\u201cA great deal of time and money has been wasted because of Fine Gael and Labour\u2019s decision to introduce water charges and install redundant water meters across this country, despite the widespread opposition of the public.<\/p>\n
\u201c\u20ac460 million has been wasted to date installing meters while an antiquated water pipes system continued to leak due to a lack of public investment.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe last couple of weeks we have been discussing the best way to refund money to people who should not have been forced to pay for their water in the first place.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of spending time debating this we should have been addressing other pressing problems such as the 448 people who were on trolleys in Tallaght Hospital or the 690,000 on public hospital waiting lists.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhy is the Government opposed to the idea of a referendum on water ownership? Access to a quality water supply is a human necessity and a right that should be denied to no one. A number of important referendums are planned for next year, so why not include one on keeping water services in public ownership?<\/p>\n
\u201cWater is one of the most valuable commodities in the world and will become even more valuable due to climate change.<\/p>\n
“It is inevitable that some wealthy people and corporations will want to profit from this demand and the drive towards privatisation will inevitably flow, as it has in other countries, if we do not put the matter of public ownership in the constitution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt is important that we keep water provision in this country in public ownership and I\u2019ve no doubt a referendum to this effect would be passed overwhelmingly.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n
ENDS<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dublin South West Sinn F\u00e9in TD, Se\u00e1n Crowe, has called for a referendum on the ownership of Irish Water to be held to ensure that Irish Water remains in public ownership. Deputy Se\u00e1n Crowe said: \u201cThe Oireachtas is still debating our water services a year after the election, when a majority of the TDs elected […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[131,54],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3269","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-referendum","category-water"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3269"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3270,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3269\/revisions\/3270"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3269"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3269"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/seancrowe.ie\/home\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3269"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}