Pádraig Mac Lochlainn (Donegal North East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government has come under extensive public pressure on water charges. It has been forced to introduce the proposed lower rates. This was not something it wanted to do; it was something in which the Government had no choice. Next Wednesday, the Government will be faced with even larger protests. Today, however, it could take the opportunity to do the right thing and scrap water charges here and now and I call on the Government to do so.

Sinn Féin will be opposing the Bill. As it stands, the only acceptable solution is to abolish water charges and dismantle Irish Water. Water is a right for all our citizens. The charges being implemented by the Government are unnecessary, unjust and will cause major hardship for families and communities that have already been devastated by the Government's relentless pursuit of the austerity agenda. Sinn Féin has consistently opposed water charges north and south of the Border. We are committed to reversing water charges in government and we have said as much clearly on the record. Sinn Féin is committed to campaigning to defeat water charges and we are standing shoulder to shoulder with families, communities and campaign groups that are opposed to water charges. Simply put, these families can take no more. The Government is pushing people over the edge.

This Government is in crisis and has lost its mandate. Ministers are now so unpopular that they face mass protests at many of the events they attend. An Garda Síochána has had to reassess security arrangements for Ministers. Surely these people have lost their mandate. Throughout this year those in government have limped from one crisis to another, but all of their own making. We have a crisis in our health system and our education system and within our policing service. The Government is fighting a war on all fronts. It has made choices which have failed to ease the burden and give low and middle-income families a break. We have heard so much talk about democratic revolution but there is no democratic revolution in the Dáil. The democratic revolution is on the streets and at the ballot box, undertaken by ordinary people who have decided that enough is enough. The continuing trends in the polls show this much. The water fiasco is the last straw. That is the phrase that we hear from ordinary people in middle Ireland who have never protested in their lives. They say this is the straw that has broken the camel's back. It is a question of the accumulation of all the cutbacks in public services and increases in taxes. There comes a point where the people take power into their own hands and that is what has happened. Instead of listening to citizens the Government offered crumbs from the table. The revised plan does little to give relief to citizens who cannot afford to pay. It shows the Government is refusing to listen and it shows how far removed it is from public opinion.

Government Members foolishly hope the smaller bills that people will face in 2015 will encourage more to co-operate with a metering programme and, most important, to pay their bills when they start to arrive in letterboxes next April. This shows the increasing desperation and blind panic of the Government. It will probably have to face the electorate sooner than it had planned. Irish Water and the water charges are hanging around its neck. That is not how I would like to approach the electorate if I were in government. We have seen the peaceful protests work, including at the ballot box, in particular with the by-elections and local and European elections earlier this year.

Sinn Féin's alternative is to abolish Irish Water as it stands because the public and Deputies on this side of the House have lost confidence in it as it has stumbled from one crisis to another. We would create a new public body with a much greater input from democratically elected local authorities and the input of those with long years of experience dealing with issues and problems related to the provision of water. Most important, the body would be accountable to the Minister and the Oireachtas, with the Comptroller and Auditor General having an important role in auditing and overseeing accounts. It would be under the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman. I call on the Minister of State to note in particular that when our water services were delivered by local authorities, citizens could take any complaints they had to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman had jurisdiction over water services because they were part of local authorities. Now, the option for independent oversight has been lost. The Government may say the regulator, the Commission for Energy Regulation, now fulfils that role, but it is not under the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman either. I call on the Government to ensure that our water services are returned to the jurisdiction of the Ombudsman, as in the case of the freedom of information issue which arose earlier this year.

The Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions has Ombudsman personnel before it as witnesses regularly. When the Ombudsman, Peter Tyndall, was before the committee, we had a discussion about concerns he had, shared by other ombudsman personnel throughout Europe, to the effect that even when public services go into semi-state or private hands, it is still a question of public services being delivered. Ombudsman personnel throughout Europe argue that such services are public services no matter who is delivering them and, therefore, they should be under the remit of an ombudsman. The idea is that a citizen should have the right to make a complaint if his experience of public services is not up to standard.

As the Minister of State is aware, there have been overwhelming numbers of complaints about Irish Water since it came into being. This is a major issue and I call on the Government to consider it. The Government has addressed the freedom of information problem that arose earlier in the year and I call on it to consider this problem in the same light.

It is vital to remind the Government that the charges being introduced are the same for millionaires as for those on the lowest incomes. This is a regressive tax. Some people are genuinely finding it difficult to make ends meet and will welcome any amendment to water charges. Our party is committed to reversing the charges if it is in government and if they have not already been reversed at that point. It is a red line issue for us. However, the people cannot wait for the next election and need to have these charges scrapped. I predict a huge gathering next Wednesday. Every Deputy has heard about this from their constituencies. It will be a moment of truth for the Government. Is the Government capable of seeing that at times it must roll back from a position it has taken?

The changes announced on 19 November were a desperate attempt to stave off massive and growing popular opposition, to allow the Government to serve the remainder of its time and to avoid humiliation in the next general election, whenever it may be. I urge as many people as possible to turn out for the peaceful protest planned in Dublin for 10 December. I look forward to standing in solidarity with the citizens of the State next Wednesday.

The Government should own up, admit it is wrong and abolish Irish Water and water charges immediately. The Government had an opportunity to listen, take a step back and abolish water charges and Irish Water but did not take it. The Government cannot govern against the will of the people. The Government has lost the mandate of citizens and if it continues on this path I predict that the days of the Members on the other side of the House in government are numbered. If the Taoiseach genuinely cared about the citizens of the State he would call a general election and go to the people. We have asked him to do this in a motion that we have tabled for debate next week. The Government parties went to the people with a message that if they voted for the Labour Party they would be saved from the Fine Gael Party's water charges, while Fine Gael stated that if people voted for it, the party would not introduce a charge unless meters were installed.

The Government has failed the people. The promises are broken. I consider the Minister of State, Deputy Simon Harris, to be a sincere and thoughtful person who has a great deal to contribute to Irish politics, but this time everyone in government must go back to the drawing board, get rid of the charges, scrap Irish Water and then re-engage with Irish people. The people have lost confidence, not just in the Government but in the political process. In fairness to them, they have taken control of that by going out on the streets. The Minister of State knows the profile of the people who have been protesting. In my home county and on the television, I have seen that they are people who have not protested before. They are mothers with their families pushing prams. They are people who have endured all of this hoping that at some point there would be light at the end of the tunnel. This issue has become the one on which they have chosen to resist.

The last election was not just an issue for Fianna Fáil but for every party, including my own. If one makes promises and commitments and then goes into government and breaks them, one will find there is no such thing as a safe seat. There is no such thing as a party that has a right to be in government. The country has changed forever. One can see it, and it is an issue for everybody. I call on the Government to reflect on that.

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