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

No. The proposal is that after Private Members’ Business the order shall resume. I oppose this and propose instead that we have a debate today on the disaster that is the Government’s water charges policy. We need to have that debate because 100,000 people flooded on to the streets of Dublin last Saturday to demand, in no certain terms, that the Government abolish the water tax. They want this to be stated categorically. I know that the Tánaiste will have been outraged that some of those involved in the demonstration had the audacity to take pictures on mobile phones instead of bringing plain paper and crayons to sketch the historic event. They were giving the lie to the cynical propaganda that austerity was at an end - some end to austerity when families with four, five and six over-18 years olds face bills of €500 to €800 next year and the year after when the Government’s cynical cap will finish.

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