Joan Burton (Dublin West, Labour) | Oireachtas source

We have set out a structure in which families will have to pay over the next two years, at a maximum, the assessed charges. In addition, in the budget there will be, for family households, which are by and large the most vulnerable households, a water services support payment of €100 per annum. That will go a significant way towards meeting and defraying the cost of water charges for many of the families about which the Deputy is understandably concerned.

If one travels 100 miles north, one finds that Sinn Féin has no problem with families paying an average, to include water, admittedly, of €950 on modest two and three bedroom houses in estates very similar to the estates here.

The Deputy’s arguments do not add up. Sinn Féin cannot cripple Irish Water by preventing it from raising funds on the international market to address the severe deficiencies and environmental and health issues arising from the way water has been dealt with in this country. Instead it will push those costs onto the taxpayer. It will cost the taxpayer approximately €500 million to do what Sinn Féin proposes in its document.

As we know from the difficult years after the bank and construction industry collapsed, everybody in this society, on low and high incomes, will have to pay the costs of the outline of the new Irish Water quango non-commercial State company for which Sinn Féin has flown the flag.

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