Paul Murphy (Dublin South West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

This is not going to work. The Bill will not save water charges, the Labour Party or the Government. Whether the Minister knows it, what has happened in the past few months is more significant even than 100,000 people coming out onto the streets on 11 October. It is more significant than up to 200,000 people coming out three weeks later. It is even more significant than the hundreds of meetings that have taken place across the State as local communities come together, self-organise and self-mobilise to discuss how to beat these water charges.

What has happened is that working class people have felt their own power. They have discovered that they can force the Government back on water charges and that things it stated were impossible - like the need to have PPS numbers - can be forced back. They know now that they can force the complete abolition of water charges and, increasingly, that they can bring the Government down. What is most dangerous of all for the political establishment is the mass of people discovering their own power. That is precisely what has happened in the past couple of months and it is precisely what is responsible for the reshaping of the political landscape at breakneck speed. It means that they will not be fooled by the baby carrots contained in the legislation. They will not be scared by the big sticks the Government and sections of the media have been waving around in the past few weeks.

The Government, ably assisted by a large section of the media, with Denis O'Brien's Independent News & Media group of newspapers to the fore, has been demonising protestors for weeks. It has been doing everything possible to convince people that 10 December will be a violent day with violent protestors and a sinister fringe to discourage them from coming. Gardaí have been acting, including with excessive force, on behalf of GMC Sierra and other metering contractors to impose water meters on those who do not want them. Incredibly, there are three people who have 28 day gaol sentences hanging over them for six months because they broke an undemocratic injunction that restricted their right to protest peacefully within 20 metres of water meters being installed on their own estates. It is a blatant attempt to intimidate them and others from protesting, notwithstanding the promises of the Minister and his talk about how the scale of the roll-out of the metering programme has been particularly impressive and how, by any measure, it has been a success. Despite all of the promises that nobody would be disconnected from a water supply, a man in Templeogue, Mr. Bernard Molloy, and his wife and three kids had their water supply disconnected for two days because they refused to accept a water meter from Irish Water. All of thiese sticks were used against people, but none of them has worked. People are still planning to come on 10 December.

The baby carrots are not going to work either. People are not at all fooled by a flat-rate home tax until 2019, after which they will pay an average per family of €200 per adult. They are not fooled by the empty promise of holding a plebiscite on privatisation that could be undone by any future Government. They are not fooled by the talk of investment in water infrastructure by a Government and previous Governments that criminally refused to invest while the left was calling for it. There is a widespread and solid understanding that water charges at any level are completely unacceptable, that they represent the commodification of water and that they must be stopped. The result is that next Wednesday people will flood the streets.

The mob - the 99% - is mobilising all across the country. Last night I spoke at a meeting in Limerick and all of those in attendance are coming to Dublin next Wednesday. Two weeks ago I spoke at a meeting in Charleville. They are all coming up to Dublin next Wednesday, too. Almost every night in the past couple of weeks I have spoken at multiple meetings in Dublin south-west to hundreds of people who are all coming next Wednesday and bringing friends and family. There will be a partial shut-down of the country next Wednesday when the power of working people will be demonstrated on a working day.

By committing to go ahead with these water charges despite that opposition, the Government has tied its future to the successful imposition of water charges. Water charges are going to sink and will bring the Government down with them. People are coming next Wednesday to bring down water charges and force their total abolition, but that is not all. They are coming next Wednesday, too, to bring down the Government. If it manages to limp on until April, it will be met with a massive boycott that will fatally undermine it and the charges. Either way, the end of the Government is growing very near. People have concluded that it is incapable of listening to working class people and the 99%. It only listens to the sinister fringe which runs the country, the likes of Denis O'Brien, the bankers, the bondholders, the European Commission and the IMF. It is a small but powerful and wealthy sinister fringe that runs the country and is represented by parties in a sinister fringe such as the Labour Party which may have no seats after the next general election.

The Government can and must be brought down by people power. Whatever Government replaces it will do so in the shadow of a massive movement that will have brought down one Government and stopped the introduction of water charges. It will have the awareness that what the people will do to the Government they can do to the next. It will be a case of all out on 10 December to bring down the water charges and the Government and to help to start a new mass movement of the 99% to end the rule of the sinister fringe, Denis O'Brien, the bankers and the bondholders. It starts on 10 December.

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