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

I put it to the Minister that she is coming at it from the wrong angle completely. The fact is that this new water tax, which will be a huge burden on families - the Taoiseach said the so-called full cost recovery will be €580 per household - is a tax too far and there is outrage about it. Fine Gael and the Labour Party learned that in the campaign for the recent elections. Therefore, this tax and the means employed to implement it have no democratic mandate and no moral authority. That is why citizens all around the country are objecting to it. The Government should end the policy of water tax and metering. This is a waste of taxpayers' funds which should go instead to fix the pipes, where there is huge leakage, rather than to send gardaí into communities to enforce a tax that is discredited before it even begins.

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