Councils should be in control of water

Can someone explain to me how the government decided to give the responsibility of our water supply to a "semi-state" company? Was there a national plebiscite held to address the matter?

And seeing as it’s a semi-state company which has been tasked with the onerous responsibility, that means it’s also semi-private. What kind of tendering process was involved in choosing who the semi-private part of the mix would be?

A recent article in the Irish Examiner said this semi-private company is being given a subvention of €537 million — why couldn’t the government have given that money to the county councils to fix the systems and keep the water supply in the hands of our own local government?