There has been considerable controversy in the past few days about the appointment of Mr. Joe O'Toole to the water commission. However, I thank Joe O'Toole for shining a light on the real objectives of the commission. His honesty in telling it like it is has been very useful to those of us who marched against and opposed water charges, as it is for the people who voted for a majority of Deputies in this House to oppose water charges. Joe O'Toole has already declared that central taxation is not enough to pay for water and that Revenue should be used to collect the levies, something of which people should take note. He says it is a political exercise, a democratic exercise - he said that people have voted in a certain way and we now have to find enough sugar to make the medicine go down. He has unpicked what this commission is all about.

What method was used to appoint the other members of the commission? Peter Peacock is the chair of the customer forum of Scottish Water and favours charges. He boasts that customer forums can help to lower prices but water and wastewater charges in Scotland stand at a handsome £417 per annum. Bill Emery is a former director of Ofwat, the British energy regulator which presided over a privatised water system. He is an associate of a company that helps public agencies deal with big business and lists 22 water companies among his clients. Xavier Leflaive of the OECD steers water policy in selected countries - such as Brazil - in South America. Thames Water, one of the biggest globalised water companies, states that Brazil has one of the largest concentrations in the world of water and wastewater privatisation opportunities. Despite two decades of water charging and privatisation in South America, more than 130 million people still have no access to safe, clean drinking water and only one in six enjoys safe and adequate sanitation. Based on this selection, the commission will be a complete sham. There is not a single representative from the largest social movement in the history of the State or the trade union movement. The commission's remit excludes any social implication of funding water services in the short, medium or long-term and that includes water poverty, future privatisation and potential shut-offs. All of these things have plagued Detroit and the people of that city have been landed with terrible debt and a scarcity of water.

The outcome of the commission is predictable and I thank Joe O'Toole again for that. There will be charges, with sweeteners for those in receipt of social welfare or living in poverty, and there will be a company that will allow privatisation by the back door. People should note that we are holding a major protest in the city on 17 September to oppose this totally undemocratic measure and the bullying of the EU on the question of water.

I thank the Deputy for the notice about the protest. This is one of the most important developments in the country in a long period because of years and years of neglect during which the Irish water system and the Irish wastewater system have been woefully inadequate. The city in which the Deputy lives has been on a knife edge in terms of its capacity for clean water for many years.

Tell me about it.

That will not improve without Irish Water being able to invest seriously in improving capacity to supply clean water in huge volumes and to deal with the leakage that, in many cases, has been happening for 100 years. Irish Water has invested over €400 million since 2015, an increase of 37% on the estimated €300 million spent in 2013. Since January 2014, it has built 20 new and upgraded water treatment plants and 49 new and upgraded wastewater treatment plants. If people live in those areas and can see the improvement in the quality of life that has come about as a consequence, they will understand why Irish Water has done such work. The Cork lower harbour project, costing €90 million, is also under way.

As a public servant, Joe O'Toole did a great deal of work over the many years he was involved in public life. He has said he wants to be an impartial chairman and he knows, more than anybody else, there must be public and political confidence in the integrity of the process that has been set out. The people the Deputy mentioned - trade unionists, ordinary citizens and so on - of course have their opportunity, but the issue was to have an expert advisory group to advise in respect of how Irish Water should do its business, the standards that should be set and the trends it should follow in order to provide businesspeople and ordinary citizens with clean water and proper wastewater treatment plants while at the same time provide an opportunity for continued investment for jobs for people so that they can have a life to live and contribute to our society. The Deputy has a very different view from me in terms of Irish Water but in the while it has been in operation, despite the many difficulties in the beginning, it has made very significant improvements through town and country, and its programme of investment in the coming years will continue that kind of development.

I do not know if the Taoiseach is doing a Mary Poppins on this but he is certainly not answering my question. I asked him about the structure and formation of the commission and I am objecting, on behalf of many people, to those I listed who were appointed to it because they are not impartial but are in fact partial towards a little bit of privatisation and a lot of charges. My question is about the structure and the composition of the commission itself, including the non-partial Joe O'Toole, who is going in to chair it with his own set views on it.

I know of some citizens who applied to be considered for this commission, some of whom have considerable expertise in the environment, waste management and water management and they were not even given the respect or the decency of an explanation as to why their applications failed or that they would not be considered suitable. The commission is loaded with academics and people from outside the jurisdiction who are unelected and not representative of the people in this country who voted, marched, protested and boycotted en masse to have a different system of water services that is publicly funded through progressive central taxation and over which they have some decision-making power. We are getting a commission that has already made up its mind that it will give us more of the same.

Thank you, Deputy.

I ask the Taoiseach how he decided the construct of such a commission, who gets to say that these doctors from outside the jurisdiction who are pro-privatisation can sit on this commission and that Joe O'Toole, who has made up his mind already, can be an impartial chairperson.

These are people of particular abilities and experience who have a lot to offer in terms of the expert group that is being set up. Everybody has a view and everybody can have a proposition. Everybody can have their say about what should be done but what has to be done is to continue to invest in the capacity to deliver clean water for people, volumes of water for business and wastewater treatment plants around the country. We cannot continue beyond 2016 with 60 or 80 wastewater plants that are woefully inadequate and are putting raw sewage into lakes and rivers. The Deputy understands that, and she saw the television programme on north Dublin conducted by RTE some time ago.

I wish the Taoiseach would answer my question.

The people who are on this expert commission applied for it. Their expertise speaks for itself.

Who chose them?

The Minister brought those names before Cabinet. They are there to do a specific job and that is to advise on the workings of Irish Water and how it should go about its business in an efficient and professional manner to provide a proper service for the millions of people throughout the country who have not had it for years because of neglect and lack of investment.

Thank you, Taoiseach.

The Deputy has a very different view of how Irish Water should be funded. The process the Minister has put in place with the suspension of charges for nine months will allow for all of these matters to be dealt with, and it will come back here eventually in terms of a decision being made by the House.

It is anti-democratic and that is my objection to it.

That concludes Leaders' Questions. I ask Members to be upstanding for one minute in silent memory of those who were slaughtered in Baghdad.