Joan Collins (Dublin South Central, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I support the Sinn Féin amendment to the Fianna Fáil motion, which is largely in line with my thinking on the issue. The Minister, Deputy Phil Hogan, admitted on television that some families will be paying up to €450 per year in water charges. With the Government adhering to its target of taking €500 million from this tax, it is inevitable that some people will be paying more than others. The Minister is coming back to rifle through the pockets of ordinary people who cannot see how they will pay this additional tax in their current circumstances. This is not about conservation; it is simply an austerity tax. If the Government really wanted to encourage water conservation, it would have put the €1 billion it is spending on meters and the €140 million it spent on consultants into fixing pipelines and preventing the loss of 40% of our expensively treated water into the ground.

I am delighted to see people coming out in housing estates in Cork and Dublin to protest against the installation and implementation of water metering. I fully support their action. These people are not fooled by the sham battle in which Fine Gael and the Labour Party engaged in recent weeks and all the talk of protecting vulnerable people, including the elderly and children. This is not about the protection of vulnerable people. It is about the protection of vulnerable election candidates on the doorsteps. After all, water charging is one of the issues most frequently raised by voters. The two-year review that has been indicated will see everybody paying much higher water charges thereafter.

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