Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance)

I wish to raise another issue with the Tánaiste. Will he explain how in 1995, when he produced this leaflet in the Dún Laoghaire constituency, and the mid-1980s, when he supported a boycott of water charges, he argued water charges were just another tax on workers? In the same leaflet he also opposed the introduction of a residential property tax. Will he explain how he is now planning to impose water charges on working people and the least well-off in our society?

Given the shocking fact that 700,000 people in this country are living in poverty, including 200,000 children - this refutes the Tánaiste claim that he protected the less well-off in the budget - and that almost half of households have a disposable income of less than €100 at the end of the month, will he dissociate himself from the Taoiseach's comments yesterday when he refused to rule out the possibility that water supplies will be cut off, the most basic necessity for human life, to people who would not be able to pay-----

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