Ceisteanna ó Cheannairí - Leaders' Questions
Dail Éireann — 2026-06-16
============================================================

Micheál Martin (FF), Cork South-Central

Irish Water is entirely publicly owned and will remain so. Recently, the Government, in the context of the national development plan, NDP, allocated unprecedented funding to Irish Water for the development of water infrastructure across the length and breadth of the country.
The urgency and imperative right now is to fundamentally improve the water supply infrastructure. It is a key utility, and the State is investing unprecedented amounts of taxpayers' money to make sure that we get the big wastewater treatment plants through. These include the eastern and midlands project. It will be interesting to see if the House will support that very important public infrastructure. If it does not happen within a decade or so, the midlands, Dublin and other areas on the east coast will be running out of water. It is likewise with the wastewater treatment plant and the Dublin drainage project. Big projects are under way, and that is where all the focus has been and will continue to be.
It is arguable at this stage whether a referendum is really required at all in respect of this matter. There is unanimity in the House in respect of keeping it in public ownership. It will stay in public ownership. Of course, when it comes to constitutional amendments, the divil is always in the detail and in the framing of the language and the wording. That is always problematic and challenging at the best of times.

---

Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted.

Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-06-16/debate/main
Retrieved: 2026-08-27T06:54:50+00:00
Sitting date: 2026-06-16