Joe Costello (Dublin Central, Labour) | Oireachtas source

The introduction of water and wastewater charges has come at an unfortunate time, immediately after the departure of the troika and the first recovery budget. One can understand that after those years of austerity, our hard-pressed citizens feel mugged when they thought there was light at the end of the tunnel.

One of the canards is that water is a basic human right and, therefore, it should be free. Food is a basic human right but people do not expect their supermarket or corner shop to give it to them for free. That is a simple fact and that argument should be dispensed with once and for all.

Unfortunately, the allowance structure that has been devised is complex and confusing and does not adequately reflect the principle of water conservation. For the next nine months, there will be a crudely assessed charged and it will only be in 12 months that the first metered bill will be sent reflecting household use. Even then, tens of thousands of homes will still not have a meter, which is not satisfactory. The Minister has stated that the Irish Water project is the largest in the history of the State since the introduction of urban and rural electrification in the 1920s and 1930s. Let us get this right. Additional funding mechanisms must be found to address the enormous challenge of providing a quality water service to the entire country as the people emerge from the long winter of discontent, which we have often discussed in this Chamber. Work remains to be done by the Government to streamline the utility and to soften the charges.

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