I want to reply to what Senator Diarmuid Wilson said. He implied that the Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, was only introducing legislation because he was supposedly going to a job in the European Union.

That is not right. On a point of order-----

I am not taking a point of order.

He also-----

That is not what I said.

Does Senator Pat O'Neill have a question for the Leader?

I will ask the Leader a question. The Senator said, using his water puns, that the Minister, Deputy PHil Hogan, was washing his hands of the matter. His Government had its head in a bucket when the country went down the drain. That is what happened. The country went down the drain. That is the Senator's water pun.

That is an outrageous statement.

The water is leaking everywhere.

The Leader attempted to facilitate us last week by having a further debate on Irish Water. It must be recorded also that, unlike in the Dáil, where the legislation on Irish Water was rushed through the House in a matter of hours, we had a substantial debate here in the Seanad over a number of sessions. Looking back, many of us would raise issues now that we did not raise on that occasion, and vice versa, but it is better to try to deal with problems as they emerge rather than in 12 or 24 months time. Interestingly - this is a point I made during my Second Stage contribution because it had been brought to our attention by Colm McCarthy in the previous week's Sunday Independent - there was one unusual aspect to this legislation. Uniquely in terms of the way all other items of legislation are presented to us, all of us received a copy of the Bill giving the legal details of what was being proposed, but the explanatory memorandum gave the detail of the transition body being set up, which was to be a combination of Government, Irish Water and union representatives. Some of us raised questions on Second Stage, which were not answered satisfactorily, as to the genesis of that approach. Notwithstanding the substantial debate in this House, which in fairness the Leader facilitated, it would be helpful if the Minister of State, Deputy Fergus O'Dowd, who tried to be helpful when he was in the House last December, returned to answer the questions now emerging. It is nobody's fault that these questions are emerging but it will be the fault of all of us if they are not answered and dealt with. It would be very useful, and very wise in the long run, if the Minister returned to the House as soon as possible to allow the new questions arising be presented to him in order that we can try to solve this problem before it becomes a serious mess.