I call Deputy Gerry Adams.

I am wondering if Fianna Fáil has lost confidence in the Taoiseach's Government-----

Not at all.

-----or is it just in the Aire, Deputy Ross. One would not know.

I have lost confidence in Deputy Adams.

Fine Gael and the Labour Party introduced water charges during the lifetime of the last Government, despite their opposition to it before they were in government. Water charges were, of course, Fianna Fáil's idea, but that Government soon made it its own. It paid consultants €86 million and awarded bonuses of almost 20% to senior management and it threatened to reduce citizens' water supplies to a trickle if they did not pay. After the last election, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil ignored the reality that a majority of Deputies were elected to abolish water charges.

Sinn Féin ran away. Sinn Féin ran away for four months.

Instead of the Taoiseach allowing the Dáil to decide the issue, he and Teachta Martin kicked the can down the road. In June, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, published the draft terms of reference for the so-called expert commission on water charges. He said he would not expect or accept any amendments to the draft. We then had the debacle surrounding the appointment of the former Senator Joe O'Toole as its chairperson. He took aim at those of us who were part of the campaign to scrap unjust charges and described us as completely and utterly wrong. He went on to say, “People voted a certain way, Leinster House is not prepared to grasp that particular nettle, so we have to find a solution that will have enough sugar on it to make the medicine go down.”

If the Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil leader had allowed the Oireachtas to deal with the issue, water charges would be long gone.

Last weekend, the comedy of errors continued when the Fianna Fáil leader said he did not envisage a return of water charges, Fine Gael criticised him for doing so and the Fianna Fáil spokesperson, Teachta Barry Cowen, then said something completely different and refused to rule out a return of charges. To top it all, the Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, declared, without any consultation with the Dáil, that Senator Pádraig Ó Céidigh would be appointed Chairman of the yet to be established Oireachtas committee on water. I have nothing against Seanadóir Ó Ceidigh. Tá meas agam air, go háirithe ar an obair ar son chúis na Gaeilge atá déanta aige. However, the issue is that the Minister has no authority to appoint the chairperson of an Oireachtas committee as such appointments are a matter for the Dáil. To intervene, as the Minister did, and to seek to appoint a Chair is a serious departure from normal Oireachtas procedure. Will the Taoiseach indicate whether he agreed this appointment with the Fianna Fáil leader at the meeting they are reported to have held last week? Will he commit to following normal procedure and have the Chair of the committee, once established, decided by its members without interference from the Minister?

My, my, how the Deputy's memory has faded. I remember him saying he would pay his water charges. I also remember Sinn Féin being very responsible and saying it would make the necessary contributions. Then when it heard the sound of marching feet out in Tallaght it decided to reverse engines. Far be it for Deputy Adams to say the Fine Gael Party and Fianna Fáil Party are out of line here.

The Fine Gael Party had a very clear view on water charges all along. We wanted a national utility, a fair contribution regime and a metering process to adjudicate on that. However, in order to make the Government work, we sat down with the Fianna Fáil Party and put in place a very clear, deliberative process to deal with the question of water. This was to be done in three stages. First, an expert commission was to be appointed to look at the entire range of issues completely objectively over a period of six months and report by the end of November. Second, a special Oireachtas committee was to be set up to consider the commission's report, which it will do. Third, we were to have a vote in the Oireachtas within a month of the special Oireachtas committee completing its consideration of the report. That vote is due to take place at the end of March 2017.

As this was a deliberative process between the two parties and part of the confidence and supply arrangement and agreement between the Fine Gael Party and Fianna Fáil Party, it is obviously necessary to have somebody who is competent, objective and capable of chairing deliberations on a complex issue such as this as Chairman of the Oireachtas committee. An Seanadóir Ó Céidigh is an outstanding person, a businessman who is used to seeing clearly through complex issues and making decisions. I am sure he will fulfil his remit in this regard in a very clear, objective and fulfilling way. In that sense, the Minister and his opposite number in the Fianna Fáil Party discussed who would be appropriate to chair the committee. This arose from the deliberative process between the Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil parties established as part of the confidence and supply arrangement.

The committee will have 20 members, 16 of whom will be Deputies and four of whom will be Senators. The 16 Deputies will include five Government, four Fianna Fáil and two Sinn Fein Deputies and one Deputy each from the Labour Party, the Anti-Austerity Alliance and People Before Profit, the Rural Alliance, Independents 4 Change and the Green Party-Social Democrats group. While the committee is larger than what we are accustomed to, the intention is to try to achieve as broad a consensus as possible on this important issue. The number of members reflects the aim of everyone to ensure that every party and group is involved in the deliberations. That is the position.

The Taoiseach has confirmed what I suspected, namely, that this appointment was the result of deliberations between the Government and the Fianna Fáil Party. What about the Dáil? Has everything been reduced to the supply and confidence arrangement, which was all about getting Fianna Fáil off the hook on this issue and getting Fine Gael back into power? The expert commission was nothing other than a fig leaf to do just that.

In three separate sections in its manifesto, Fianna Fáil gave clear commitments to scrap water charges and Irish Water. The Taoiseach and the Fianna Fáil leader do not admit to that. Instead, they call it new politics. It is all about expediency. The fact is the Minister, no matter about whatever arrangement he has with Fianna Fáil, stepped entirely beyond his remit when he announced this appointment to the chair of this committee. I have asked the Taoiseach a hundred times over the past six years will he stop this comedy of errors and simply establish the fact that water charges need to be scrapped. That is what Sinn Féin has done in the North and is what the Taoiseach should do here. He should put an end to this perpetual ongoing farce and scrap the water charges.

Sinn Féin here supported water charges very much.

No, we did not.

We never did.

Deputy Gerry Adams himself is on record, as a good citizen, saying he will pay his water charges. He then reversed engines for his own reasons.

Deputy Gerry Adams asks about the House's involvement in this matter. The expert commission's report will be sent to the specific Oireachtas committee on dealing with this matter. This was discussed at the Dáil Business Committee on 17 November. The Minister for Housing, Planning, Community and Local Government, Deputy Simon Coveney, has been in touch with all of the parties since. It is intended to move motions in the Dáil and the Seanad this week to establish the all-party committee on the funding of domestic public water services, as well as to receive, to consider and to make recommendations to the Oireachtas on the commission's report. The Dáil and the Seanad have to approve the special Oireachtas committee. That takes into account everybody's wishes.

The broad make-up of the committee was discussed on 17 November. The Minister has been in touch with all of the different parties. Everybody will have the opportunity to have their say. Seanadóir Pádraig Ó Céidigh will chair this committee in a really objective and professional manner. I will point out to Deputy Gerry Adams that this is the commission's report, not a Government report. It is going straight to a special all-party committee to investigate.