Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

To add insult to injury, Irish Water hired a public relations firm to brainwash people into acceptance. This reminds me of a book by Noam Chomsky and Edward S. Herman entitled Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media. The advice given to Irish Water was to start off by describing water as free and then say it costs money, and that by charging for water people will be persuaded to value water and pay their water bills. This is the strategy of manufacturing consent. However, there is a real problem in this regard. Where will the investment be found given that the Government has bled dry the vast majority of the population, who cannot even pay their utility bills and who will struggle to pay the bills issued to them from next January? The amounts that are proposed to be taken from them will barely cover the running costs of Irish Water. Where will the money be found for the additional investment?

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