Séamus Healy (Tipperary South, Workers and Unemployed Action Group) | Oireachtas source

Members of the public continue to pay for water through general taxation. The proposed water charges amount to double taxation and an attempt to make hard-pressed families pay a second time. This revenue raising exercise which has nothing to do with conservation will not work. Today's announcements amount to political trickery to get water charges over the line and establish the principle of charging for water at any cost. Once water charges have been established, water will become a commodity and charges will increase to reflect the principle of full cost recovery under European Union law. The announcements are the thin end of the wedge. They are akin to a supermarket's use of a loss leader, the practice of casting out a sprat to catch a salmon or the trick used by the spider of inviting the fly to come into its parlour. Members of the public know that water charges are a trap and they will not be fooled. They also know that charges introduced at a low level will balloon into significant sums, as occurred after refuse and bin charges were introduced. I will tell a little story to illustrate my point. As a member of Clonmel Corporation when it introduced bin charges of £5 per annum, I opposed the measure on the basis that the charges represented the thin end of a wedge that would, in time, hit hard-pressed families very hard. I was ridiculed by the usual councillors from Fianna Fáil, Fine Gael and the Labour Party. What happened subsequently? Bin charges now stand at more than €300 per annum, more than 30 times higher than the introductory rate; the waiver for low income families has been abolished and the refuse service privatised. That is what the future holds if we allow water charges to be introduced. Members of the public are aware of this and will not be sold a pup a second time after the Labour Party sold them one in the 2011 general election.

Families have had enough after six years of austerity. The hated water charge is the straw that broke the camel's back. Commitments to introduce legislation to prevent privatisation are nothing more than promises from a Government that cannot be trusted. Proposed legal changes to cap charges for a number of years, make it more difficult to privatise Irish Water or require a plebiscite before privatisation are completely bogus. As any Act can be repealed or amended by a simple majority of Deputies, such a proposal is pure deception. If the Government was sincere on this issue, it would agree to a constitutional amendment.

Members of the public know that only people power can defeat water charges and secure the status of water as a human right and public good. The most important task for the risen people is to turn out in large numbers for the national protest on 10 December. In County Tipperary they should support the march in Nenagh at 2 p.m. next Saturday which will start at the railway station and the march in Clonmel on the following Saturday - 29 November - which will start from the Main Guard.

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