Clare Daly (Dublin North, United Left) | Oireachtas source

The Government has made a serious mistake today. As the Minister stated, this is an historic day. The Government had an opportunity to listen, take a step back and abolish water charges and Irish Water but did not take it. No one can govern against the will of the people. The Government has lost the mandate of citizens and its days are numbered. If the Taoiseach had any self-respect, he would call a general election and go to the people. We had to listen to him at the weekend waffle about democracy, aided and abetted by some of his friends in the media who tried to discredit a people's movement and insult people by claiming they had allowed themselves to be led by a sinister fringe. Where was the coverage of the 200 women in Coolock who protested peacefully outside the local Garda station last night? Those who are undermining democracy are not in communities but sitting on the benches opposite. The Government parties went to the people with the message that if they voted for the Labour Party, they would be saved from the Fine Gael Party's water charges, while Fine Gael stated that if people voted for it, the party would not introduce a charge, unless meters were installed. That is fraud, not democracy. The Government has betrayed the people and succeeded in awakening a sleeping giant. Now that people have woken up, they like it and will not go back into their box. The demonstration on 10 December will be enormous and the Government will not survive it, unless it cops on beforehand. If it tries to limp along after that date, it will find it will become impossible to collect the water charges in April 2015. I strongly suspect, however, that collection will not be the Government's problem because it will probably be gone by that point.

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