I raise the issue of the local authority water service workers again. I have raised it a number of times. I raise it today because there are only three weeks until the Dáil recess and the changing of the guard from the point of view of the Taoiseach and five weeks until the commencement date of the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC, framework plan that affects up to 3,500 workers.

To date, Unite the Union water service workers have rejected the plan by 82%, and 96% of water service workers in the Connect trade union have balloted to take industrial action if the date and wording for a referendum to enshrine the public ownership and management of water and sanitation services in the Constitution are not initiated. They want to keep the full terms and conditions they have with the local authorities. They want honoured their rostered overtime and allowances, which impact their future pensions. They want that red-circled. They want public service status protected. The water service workers in SIPTU and Fórsa have not been balloted, and I hope the Taoiseach will agree that this is a democratic deficit for those workers. They were promised that a referendum would be passed before any transfer of workers to Irish Water and that such a transfer would take place in 2026. In the WRC framework agreement, there is no mention of a referendum and the date has been brought forward by three years to 1 January 2023.

The Minister, Deputy O'Brien, stated in a letter to me that he will bring forward definitive proposals on a referendum on water ownership for consideration early in the new year. That is not good enough. It is too vague and it still kicks the can down the road. We have had too many delays. In November 2018, the then Minister, Eoghan Murphy, announced he was to seek approval for such a referendum. That was two years after the Bill I introduced in 2016, and we are still waiting six years on for that proposal to go to the Cabinet. The Bill was unopposed and the framework plan has been brought forward by three years, from 2026 to 2023. The Bill I proposed on behalf of the huge Right2Water campaign is sitting on Committee Stage. The Taoiseach will be aware of that Bill.

The Taoiseach's party claims to support a referendum, so it should prove it and ensure water and sanitation do not remain in public ownership in name only, with the majority of services outsourced to private companies on long-term contracts. I have seen many Ministers clamour to bring legislation to the Cabinet before the D-day of 17 December. Will the Taoiseach instruct his Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to bring a wording and the date for a referendum to his Cabinet before 17 December?

I thank the Deputy for raising this very important issue. Transfers to Irish Water of water services workers under the framework for future delivery of water services, which was identified, as the Deputy will know, at the Workplace Relations Commission on 24 June of this year, are voluntary. Every worker will have the option of staying with his or her local authority, and transfers will happen over a four-year period, from 2023 to 2026, inclusive. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage hosted parallel engagement with the unions on a number of policy matters of relevance to staff in the context of the water transformation programme, including a referendum on water ownership.

A paper entitled Irish Water Transformation: The Wider Policy Context was shared with the unions in July of this year to reflect the engagement outcomes. That paper set out the planned approach to bring forward a referendum proposal on water ownership for consideration by the Government in conjunction with the anticipated recommendation of a proposed referendum on housing from the Housing Commission. In that way it is intended that definitive proposals, including timelines for referendums on water and housing, in line with the commitments given in the programme for Government, will be considered by the Government in the near future. I hope we will have recommendations by the end of the year in order that the Minister will be in the position to act on this early in the new year.

In that context the process that has been entered into is a positive one, and the policy paper reflected all of that in respect of Irish Water separating from the Ervia group during 2023.

The Water Services (Amendment) (No. 2) Bill is due to conclude in the Oireachtas on Thursday. Seanad Report and Final Stages will provide for the separation. Irish Water will then integrate the day-to-day operations in the delivery of water services into its own organisational structures in place of the current service level agreements. In many ways, that will make for a better delivery of water services.

The referendum has been committed to. The Housing Commission is working on those issues. During the debates in the House and so on, we acknowledged that the constitutional referendum emerged as a key concern. The Government intends to act on that with legislation. The Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Deputy Darragh O'Brien, has signalled his willingness to support that referendum on the ownership of water and to hold it in conjunction with a referendum on housing once the recommendation from the Housing Commission comes forward, hopefully towards the end of the year.

We have been waiting for a referendum and a wording to come forward for six years. It has been six months since the policy document was published and we still await wording and a date. It is an absolute disgrace. I have received correspondence from water service workers. They say they want a referendum now. The wording must be that the ownership of water and water service are to remain public. Terms and conditions of local authority water workers do not include allowances and regular and rostered overtime. Allowances and regular rostered overtime and on-call allowance must be red-circled in the water framework document. Those allowances are pensionable. They can stay in the local authority but they may not be in the same position. They might be in parks or maintenance and they are not carrying their rostered overtime and the pensionable allowances. They want that red-circled and put in the framework plan and they want a referendum now.

One of the workers told me to tell the Minister to make no mistake: if he tries to force the framework plan on the workers, he will be met with massive nationwide industrial action. We need a referendum on the public ownership now. That is their message to the Government.

The Minister is committed to this and there is a recommendation to come from the Housing Commission.

We have been waiting for years.

There is no doubt but that water will remain in public ownership in this country. I know of no political party in this Dáil or this Oireachtas which wants to privatise water.

Fine Gael.

No they do not. I have not seen anyone say that. No one has articulated that in a long, long time.

We need to stop the scaremongering but that said, we are committed to a referendum. But let us stop the scaremongering. The public wants a smooth, efficient delivery of water services. We need to expand wastewater treatment plants. That is the focus on the Government. It is to get more capital allocated and not only that but to get delivery to get more housing estates connected to water more quickly and to get the extra housing that is being built every year connected more regularly. Those are the bread and butter issues that the people are concerned about in respect of water.

This is all taking place within the Workplace Relations Commission, WRC.

The workers were not allowed vote for it.

A workplace framework agreement was agreed with the unions through the WRC and so on. There has been a lot of consultation and a lot of engagement on this. Moreover, as I said originally, it is voluntary.