Thomas Pringle (Donegal South West, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to contribute to this debate on water charges. Some people may say that we have to pay for water usage and that we cannot continue to have free water, but we never had free water in this country. The €1.2 billion cost of producing water across the country has been paid for all along by central taxation, so there has never been free water. Car tax contributed to water services, so will we get a reduction in motor taxation due to the introduction of water tax? No, we will not.

Water tax is being introduced to allow the Government to pay the €9 billion in interest payments on the unjustified bank debt that every one of us must carry as a burden. Therefore there is no such thing as free water because we have been paying for it already. We will now be paying for it on the double because of the introduction of water charges.

Over the last three weeks or so, we have been treated to the charade of the Labour Party throwing its toys out of the pram in Cabinet and wanting to get what it calls benefits for people who cannot afford water charges. We have seen the rigmarole of today's agreement on water charges.

What we see out of the agreement is that the average charge per house for water in 2015 will be the same as was suggested four weeks ago - that is, €240 per house. In fact, it has gone up by €2 from the initial figure of €238. There has been no change. The average cost of water per house will still be €240. All the Government has done is to give a small consideration to people who must use extra water because of illness. People who cannot afford to pay water charges will have the privilege of going to the community welfare officer to ask for some discretionary contribution to the cost of water bills. The same system is already in place for people's ESB and other utility bills and it has proven extremely difficult for them to obtain support from community welfare officers. It will be just as difficult for someone to get support in paying their water charges. There has been no concession for people who will have difficulty paying. There is nothing in the scheme for them.

The Government has made much play of the fact that there will be 30,000 litres of free water for each household. I heard the Minister refer earlier to how generous the allocation is. It is interesting to look at existing commercial customers which have a domestic element in their billing process. Their free allowance at the moment is 227,000 litres. Those who are already paying water charges - commercial customers with a domestic element - will see their free allowance reduced by a factor of 7.5. A couple living in rural Ireland offering bed and breakfast accommodation which is metered by the local authority will see their free allowance reduced from 227,000 litres to 30,000. This is the extremely generous allowance the Government has implemented. It means those people will pay more for their water supply in 2015 than they did this year. Much has been made by IBEC and other business interests of how commercial water charges will have to be reduced now that Irish Water has come into play. However, people with a commercial element in their water bills who live over the shop, pub or post office or operate a small bed and breakfast will see their charges increase significantly because the Government has wiped out the free allowance that is already there. Why was that allowance not used as the model for delivering a free allowance nationally?

If one takes the average charge of €240, Irish Water's own figures, circulated today in a frequently-asked-questions document, show that we will have a unit price of approximately €2.25 per cubic meter. That is the price the CER will come out with in the coming months.

See this speech in context