The SIPTU/TEEU Water Guarantee campaign offers every TD and councillor in the country the opportunity to show their support for maintaining our water services in public ownership.

Local authority workers, who have delivered our water services for decades, have come up with two simple solutions to what they know to be the serious threat of the creeping privatisation of this essential utility.

Firstly, the national utility which oversees the development of our water services on a 26 county basis, Irish Water, must be re-designated from a commercial semi-state to a non-commercial state agency. This will remove the ability of private capital to seep into our water system and slowly twist it from being focused on public service to profit generation.

Secondly, a referendum which will constitutionally copper-fasten our water services in public ownership. Only such a public vote can ensure that future governments cannot be persuaded to succumb to the demands of the massive multi-national companies that are seeking to privatise water services across the globe.

It is the duty of all SIPTU members to work with the Water Guarantee campaign to persuade elected representatives to protect the existence of a public water service for future generations. This campaign is not about how such a service should be financed but is focused on the even more fundamental issue of what our water system should be; a source of private profits or an essential service for our society.