Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

This country does not have a Government; it has a bunch of charlatans masquerading as a Government. They do not listen to the people of Ireland. They prostrate themselves in the most slavish fashion before the demands of the institutions of European capital, including the ECB and the European Commission. These institutions, in turn, subject themselves to the demands of European financial markets, international bankers, hedge funds and vulture capitalists in their pursuit of super profits. With breath taking arrogance, this band of charlatans, masquerading as a legitimate Government, will ram through Dáil Éireann - the national Parliament - water services legislation that will pile new burdens in water taxes on the shoulders of the people who are already hard pressed as a result of austerity policies. It is another bondholders' tax introduced to pay the disastrous speculative debts for which this cowardly Government continues to bleed the people. The Bill is nothing more than a charter to bleed new water taxes from ordinary people and to make water, a human need and a human right, a business commodity that can be bought and sold in the capitalist marketplace and privatised and handed over to multinational water companies.

This legislation and any attempt to charge for water should be met by a nationwide boycott of this unjust tax, as was done in 1994, 1995 and 1996 to compel the Government of the day to abolish a previous tax. This is perfidious legislation entirely befitting the bunch of charlatans from Fine Gael and the Labour Party who call themselves a Government. Apart from these words and my vote against the Bill, I will take no further part in these proceedings because my doing so would only confer credibility on a charade and a grotesque abuse of even the remotest concept of democracy.

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