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

Today's opinion poll, which was disastrous for the Government parties, represents the decisive rejection by the people of the hated water charges, the parties that have tried to implement them and the Bill before us.

The people are no longer being fooled. They have been fooled a couple of times by electoral promises and pledges from the Labour Party and Fine Gael, and have seen through the lies and false promises. They are rejecting the con trick in this Bill. It is a desperate attempt by the Government to con people into thinking it is listening, but in fact it is luring them into paying these unfair charges. As has been the case with bin charges and other things before them, the allowances and caps will rapidly disappear, the charges will rocket and water will be privatised. The people know this.

This debate is irrelevant. The debate has already happened. The judgment has already been made. It was made on 11 October and again on 1 November, and will manifest on the streets on 10 December, when we will hear for the third time, in unprecedented numbers, the rejection by the people of water charges, the demand that they be fully scrapped and the demand that the Government which gave people the water charges must go because it lied to the people and refused to listen when they spoke with an unmistakable voice.

The only thing any representative of the Government has got right in the past number of weeks was when the Taoiseach said it was about more than water charges. He is correct. It is about the right to water and scrapping water charges. It is also about the right to a home and the right of people not to die homeless on the street. It is about the right of people to be treated in a dignified way in a health service that works. It is about the right of people to access a decent education system. It is about the right of people to have public representatives who tell them the truth, do not lie to them before elections, stick to their promises and will be held accountable if the promises are not kept.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the centenary celebrations of 1916 have come two years early. They have begun. The celebration of 100 years of resistance and revolution in this country started on 11 October, manifested again on 1 November and will manifest again on 10 December, when the real people's assembly will take place and cast a damning judgment on the Government and its failure to listen to or represent the people. The old politics are being swept aside. The democratic revolution the Government promised, but failed to deliver, is erupting onto the streets and it is now too late for the Government.

People want something new. They want an end to the cynicism, dishonesty, half-measures, backroom manoeuvring, con tricks and spin. They want honesty, accountability and fairness. The Government has not given that to them and they have now decided they will take it for themselves. They are absolutely right. The people are rising and a new revolution for a new century has begun. Almost everything that will happen in this Chamber in the next week or two will be immaterial, because a new democracy is being born on the streets and the people are beginning to talk about the new types of institution and organisation they need to genuinely represent their will and to ensure basic rights. People deserve certain basic things by right to live a dignified existence. These things should not be restricted to those with money. The idea that only people with money can access water, housing, a health system that does not involve waiting on a list for year, a proper education for their children and no forced emigration is obnoxious. That is what the people are saying. It is extraordinary that the Government does not seem to understand that.

All Government Ministers should go out onto the streets and see what democracy looks like. It is a slogan we will hear again on 10 December: "This is what democracy looks like." This is what democracy sounds like. This is what democracy feels like. Hundreds of thousands of people will get out and say they will determine their own future because they are sick of cronies, corporate vampires and political representatives who lie to them and take from them their self-determination.

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