Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Some seven months ago, a pensioner came into my office in Wicklow. The Government had told her that if she did not have the €100 to pay the water charge, it would send men to her house to turn her water supply down to a trickle. She came in to ask me what a trickle would mean for her and whether she would be able to wash herself, her clothes and her dishes.

The Government humiliated that woman, and many men and women around the country, because it did not listen. Phil Hogan designed this legislation behind closed doors. Contracts were signed with local authorities behind closed doors. The charging regime was agreed behind closed doors. The former Minister, Phil Hogan, then marched in here and told us all how things were going to be. Neither Opposition nor Government Deputies had a chance to talk about it, and he marched out again.

The approach at the time was arrogant and heavy-handed, and it was profoundly anti-democratic and bad for parliamentary democracy in this country. The result, as we all know, has been fear, frustration and anger in the country. It will lead to the waste of hundreds of millions of euro of public money. It has resulted in the largest mobilisation of mass protest in this country in decades. I would have thought, in the face of so much public opposition and parliamentary frustration, that the Government would have listened this time. However, two weeks ago, the Taoiseach came to the House and said we would have a debate. He said we would not have it while the Government was figuring out what to do. Government backbenchers and Opposition Members were to be given a chance to debate this issue once we had been told exactly what would happen.

Yesterday the Minister for the Environment, Communications and Local Government, Deputy Alan Kelly, marched in, told us how things were going to be and marched straight back out again, with the Taoiseach and the Tánaiste. This is meant to be a debate, but it is not. Rather, we have members of the Government defending a position and members of the Opposition challenging that position. The position will not change based on this debate. This is a series of statements. The Minister, the Government and the Cabinet have made up their minds.

The inability to listen is not just a matter of style; it is very much relevant to the substance of the matter. The people have said that consideration must be given to ability to pay. A charge of €60 or €160 may not seem like a lot of money when it is being discussed at the Cabinet table, where the average wage is about €160,000, and may not seem like a lot of money when it is discussed in here, where the average wage is over €90,000. However, €60 or €160 is a lot of money for one of the 150,000 families in this country living in a house that is in mortgage arrears, where it is clear one has no money. A charge of €60 or €160 is a hell of a lot of money to the pensioner who came to see me several months ago in Wicklow and said she did not have the money. The woman concerned lives on €100 a week and at the end of the year she does not have a spare €60 or €160. The response of the Government yesterday was that it would make it easier for her to pay money she does not have.

It is worse than that. I have tried to work through the few numbers we have today. The meter that has been installed outside the woman's house will cost about €40 a year and the cost of billing her will be in excess of €20, and may be up to €50, a year. The cost to the State of billing her €60 a year will be more than €60 a year. The State will lose money trying to get €60 out of her. When she says, "I would pay you if I had it, but I don't have it," what will happen? Irish Water will refer her to debt collectors, who will hire lawyers, and the State will pay even more money.

The people have said that the water supply must remain in public ownership. The Government and the Minister who is here today have said it will, and we should trust them. The people, rightly or wrongly, do not trust the Government. None of us here knows what a future Government will do or whether a ruling will come from Europe that, based on new competition rules, we have to privatise our water market. We do not know what will happen. The answer we have been given is that the Government will make the legislation say that a plebiscite is required. The Government can change legislation and is not bound to hold a plebiscite.

The people have said they are not okay with double taxation. Where is the financial plan to show that will not happen? There is none. We know future Government subvention for Irish Water will definitely be less than the current payments for providing water from central government. We know that some form of double taxation will remain in place. The people want certainty, but we have not been provided with a financial plan. We have been told that, even now, Irish Water is trying to figure out how much money it will invest after the next two years.

The Government has set up a multi-billion euro utility company with less financial acumen and forward planning than one would expect to see in a school tuck shop, and did so with other people's money. If any private sector group set up Irish Water in the same manner, it would be fired and sued for negligence. We know that domestic charges over the next two years will raise about €90 million net. A total of €271 million will be raised and some of it will be given back. We know water meters will cost between €500 million and €750 million, and billing and customer service will cost many millions every year. Based on the current system, the only thing that is happening is that the Irish people will be charged to cover the costs of charging them.

See this speech in context