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

I apologise in advance for having to leave the Chamber straight after my contribution but I have to attend a meeting. I also thank Deputies Stephen Donnelly and Finian McGrath for facilitating me in this regard.

I commend Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan on bringing forward this timely motion. I am not sure if the Minister of State, Deputy Kevin Humphreys, is aware that 10 December 2014 is International Human Rights Day, which is the reason the Right to Water campaign decided on that date for the next demonstration against water charges. At the centre of that campaign is the belief, shared it is now clear by a huge number, if not the majority, of people in this country, that access to water is a human right. As indicated by the Taoiseach when he saw the scale of the recent protests, they are not only about water charges. He is right about that. In a way, this motion speaks to that fact.

For many people, water charges are the last straw. What runs behind this is the belief that this Government and the political establishment generally in this country and in Europe have lost their moral compass somewhere along the way and have forgotten the point of politics, the point of economics and the point of a society. This is not about balance sheets, deficits, debt targets and all the technocratic nonsense that is used to justify gross levels of unfairness, inequality, poverty and so on. What it should be about is what people need to exist a civil and dignified life and establishing the bottom lines for economic thinking, social policy and policy generally. The problem is that things are being done arse about face because in dictating policy and deciding economic priority, the Government starts not with what people need and what should be their basic rights, but with profit, balance sheets, debt, deficits, what the bond holders need, keeping the markets happy and keeping bond yields down, all of which does not mean anything to anybody. It is the wrong way to do things. The most basic right is access to water, which people physically need to exist. One could also say the same about housing. If people cannot have a roof over their heads, then frankly we should forget everything else. If 20% of the children in this country are living in poverty, then forget about social stability. Talk of economic recovery is utterly meaningless if 20% of our children are living in poverty and have to exist through their childhoods in poverty. We must set bottom lines, which must include the right to water, the right to housing, the right of children not to live in poverty and the right to access to education up to third level, without obstacle, for anybody who needs it.

These must be basic bottom lines. Everything else should come secondary, and be surplus, to that. That is the sentiment which is driving the popular mobilisation we will see manifest itself on the streets. If the Government is not willing to find its moral compass, we will see what human rights budgeting looks like in the demonstration on 10 December. While the Government talks about its bankrupt policies in this House, there will be a popular assembly outside it where people representing communities, civil society groups and trade unions the length and breadth of the country will have their own parliament. If the Government bothers to listen to what is said on those protests, it will hear people start with the basic requirements for their children, for housing and for the right to access water without a price tag on it. Our human rights are not for sale. Access to water is not for sale and access to housing should not be for sale. That is what human rights budgeting is about and I commend Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan. Vindication of what she is trying to get across here will be seen on the streets of Dublin on 10 December and beyond.

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