Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Government Members say they listened to what people were saying in recent weeks. Following the package of proposals announced by the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, yesterday, it is absolutely clear this is not true. All roads now lead to the demonstration organised by the Right2Water campaign, for which I am a member of the steering committee, for 10 December. The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Brendan Howlin, tried to tar all the protests that have taken place in recent weeks as violent, with reference to "sinister elements" and so on. The Right2Water campaign has held two of the largest demonstrations in the history of the State, both of which I was directly involved in organising, and both were entirely peaceful and without incident.

The demonstration on 10 December also will be entirely peaceful and without incident. Instead of seeking to muddy the waters, Members opposite should listen to what the people taking part in these protests have said and what they will say again on 10 December. In short, they are saying they want water charges abolished. Instead of listening to that message, however, the Government came out yesterday with a shambolic and dishonest attempt to deceive the people as to its real intention, which is to get citizens on the hook for these unfair and regressive water charges and, on that basis, to continue the process of unfairly extracting a regressive tax that is bound to increase continually in the years to come. The people know this is the intention. Any prayers Ministers may be saying or any hopes they have that yesterday's con trick will quell the wave of protest are in vain.

How can it be fair that a millionaire who happens to live alone will be asked to pay €60 while two old people on the State pension and living on the bread line will have to pay €160? Likewise, a minimum wage household with several children and struggling to pay the bills will be charged more than twice what the single millionaire will pay. That is fundamentally unfair and regressive. Moreover, the Government's assurances that the charges will not increase are utterly without credibility. When the Minister, Deputy Howlin, condemns those of us who are opposed to water charges for being against everything and talking about double taxation, he forgets the simple fact that before the last election, every single Labour Party Member promised never to impose such charges. In fact, they said then exactly what we are saying now, namely, that such charges are unfair and regressive. It is the Minister and his Labour Party colleagues who have deceived the people and insulted their intelligence by saying one thing about water charges before the election and doing something completely different after it. There is no doubt that once the charges are introduced, they will rise incrementally and all the allowances and sweeteners will disappear. We heard all the same promises about waivers for those who could not pay bin charges, but those waivers were removed, charges were increased and refuse services were privatised.

I made a discovery today that sends another grenade into the middle of the assurances the Government has offered people. A directive dated November 2014 from the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government to local authorities makes clear the Government is not only planning to make private landlords do its dirty work by acting as debt collectors for Irish Water but that the same will also be required of local authorities in respect of the tens of thousands of council tenants. The directive states:

In the particular case of local authority tenants where deposit arrangements do not apply, where a customer is in arrears for more than 12 months and a late payment fee has accrued, Irish Water, having first provided the customer with the opportunity to pay the arrears or enter into a repayment plan, will advise the local authority concerned of the amount of arrears and the local authority will be required by law to recover the amount outstanding over a 12 month period.

Councils will be doing Irish Water's dirty work by taking water charges arrears out of council tenants' rent payments. As it stands, many such tenants are struggling to pay their rent because of the impact of recession and unemployment and many already are in arrears.

The Minister, Deputy Kelly, claimed yesterday that water meters are necessary for conservation purposes. That is nonsense. The cheapest way to detect leaks is to have district meters put in place to identify how much water is going into a particular area. If more water is going in than the average for the number of households in the area, one can detect the leaks. Household meters are much more costly and inefficient and will not detect the major leaks in the mains systems as opposed to smaller leaks in the join between the mains and individual properties. The Government is insisting on meters because it wants to be able to bill and charge people and because it must ensure its friend, Denis O'Brien, gets the contract to install them. Most of the €500 million installation cost will go to his company, GMC-Sierra Limited. Despite Government claims to the contrary, we are already seeing effective privatisation of our water services, with €175 million going to private consultants and €500 million to private contractors installing the meters. We should not forget that Denis O'Brien's company, Siteserv, had €100 million of its debts written off by Anglo Irish Bank even though he himself owed several hundred millions to that bank. Indeed, the same bank has obliged Mr. O'Brien by writing off debts for Independent Newspapers and Topaz.

It is extraordinary what is going on here. Is Irish Water the vehicle by which the corporate friends of this Government are to be allowed to loot our water resources and rob hard-pressed citizens who, even before this charge is introduced, are unable to pay their bills? People will not be fooled, however, and it is already clear that these proposals will not wash. The Government will see the judgment of the people on 10 December.

The real popular assembly will be a mass peaceful protest of tens of thousands of people, not 60 people, passing judgment on water charges.

See this speech in context