Sinn Fein has claimed the Water Services Bill 2017 fails to address key water committee recommendations.

The party's housing spokesperson Eoin Ó Broin said the Bill does not include fair treatment for group water scheme members, conservation measures and a referendum enshrining the public ownership of water services in the constitution.

He also cautioned Housing Minister Eoghan Murphy against attempting to rush the Bill through the Housing Committee.

Deputy Ó Broin said: "This is quite a technical Bill where issues such as the so called excess charge, calculations for average household use, a metric charge for so-called excess use and medical waivers and allowances for larger family sizes all need to be teased out. This Bill is about more than legislating for water charge refunds.

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"The government is trying to prevent sufficient scrutiny of this important legislation. The reason we schedule time to debate these Bills is to ensure that the legislation is legally sound and that there are no errors or unintended consequences.

"The rental legislation that was rushed through before Christmas last year was flawed. This was as a result of the then-Minister Simon Coveney railroading through the Bill without sufficient time for drafting or for scrutiny.

"Minister Murphy is intent on repeating the mistakes of this predecessor. He needs to ram through this legislation to meet the arbitrary deadline he announced for refunds this Christmas. This deadline is now serious doubt and I'm not sure if he has thought through the logistics of refunding nearly 1 million households in two months."

(CD)