Noel Harrington (Cork South West, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

When a meter was installed in one household, it discovered a leak of 1 million litres in three months. I defy the Deputy to figure out how a district meter system would discover that. In another group of 22 households, leaks of 1 million litres per week were discovered by individual metering. That is water conservation through metering, in anybody's language. It is welcome to promote measures such as turning off the tap when brushing one's teeth, putting extra volume into the cistern to reduce the flush and so forth and to encourage being careful about water, but that will go only so far. When households are leaking 1 million litres of water in three months under the surface and it can be discovered only through a metering system, that is an issue. It is irresponsible to ignore it.

Every country in the world, particularly in the European Union, that has a water supply network has water rates.

While in many cases they are part-subsidised by the State, the majority is paid by the users. There was major opposition in this city and elsewhere to the imposition of refuse charges. People said they could not pay and would not pay, refuse was piling high, there were strikes, etc. Now, it is privatised and there are no waivers. While we always expect opposition to a new charge, there is opposition for the sake of opposition, and it needs to be more nuanced. Anger, decibels, volume and megaphones are not solutions. While protest is welcome, without proposals and alternatives, it is a different ball game. The same people would propose a property tax or a wealth tax.

Opposition Members have said the protest next Wednesday will be not just about water but about a range of issues with which the Government has dealt. There may be a protest about health care, while we have the fastest-rising life expectancy in the world. There may be a protest about social welfare, although I do not know of a more generous social welfare system in the world. In education, it is recognised by industry and according to educational standards that we send out the best and brightest graduates in the world. We have the lowest crime figures I know of in Europe. We have restored our reputation domestically and internationally and our economy is improving, which is welcome, although we have a long way to go.

The one group I would expect to protest, whom I hear and who should be noticed, is those who pay all the time for everything. They contribute to everything. They contribute in their communities. They are busy 12 to 14 hours a day working, raising their families, trying to put their children through education, paying for their health insurance and, in most cases, trying not to be a burden. They are exasperated. They pay extortionate levels of income tax and they are the ones I feel sorry for. Sinn Féin would have them pay extra income tax. Many of them do not access public water. Assuming there are two people per household, I estimate that 1.6 million people who do not access public water would be asked to pay in different ways to subsidise those who do. It is irresponsible and flawed, and for people to mention it in the same breath as equality, fairness, justice and equal treatment for all defies logic.

This is not a popular measure by the Government. We know and understand this. As backbench Deputies, we do not like to discuss the imposition of a new charge on households. For most households, it is not a new charge but a reimposition of water rates. I live in an area affected by cryptosporidium and continuous breaks in the water network, where homes and businesses that pay for their water are tearing their hair out, exasperated, and coming to me and other public representatives wondering what we are going to do about it. What we need is greater investment. I live in an area where asbestos pipes that supply townlands are constantly breaking and where the water network is so under-funded that its collapse is inevitable if we do nothing. People talk about revolution. Revolution means going around in circles, and backwards half the time. We are trying to go straight ahead, and that is why I will support the Bill. Although it is unpopular, it is right.

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