Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party) | Oireachtas source

The Water Services Bill 2014 is a highly duplicitous item of legislation and emanates from a Government that is reeling from a major movement of people power that has come to the fore in the past few months against the imposition of water charges and against Irish Water. The Bill reeks of dishonesty from the Government from start to finish. Water charges were first conceived and introduced as the new austerity tax.

The intention was to get between €1 billion and €1.5 billion per year from householders through the new water tax. That money was to be used to continue the process of bringing water to our homes and workplaces, which has been done for generations funded from the general taxation paid by everyone. The idea was to use the €1 billion to €1.5 billion to replace the money from the general taxation fund because billions from that pool must be used each year to continue the bailout of bankers and bondholders in European financial markets who gambled wildly on the Irish property bubble. The people concerned made massive profits while the going was good and when the crash happened, almost all of their losses were, incredibly, made good on the backs of the people. We labelled the water charges an austerity tax to bail out bankers and bondholders, which is exactly what is happening. This year alone, between €7 billion and €8 billion will be paid in interest on the national debt, a significant proportion of which arises from the bailout. These interest payments would fund water services many times over and allow for the repair of the water infrastructure that has been grotesquely neglected for decades by successive Governments.

The Bill, in its provisions and intentions, is dishonest from start to finish. The Government has introduced an austerity tax camouflaged as a conservation measure. We have been treated in recent years to endless arrogant lectures from Ministers and the Taoiseach on the need for water conservation, but this is hypocrisy, given the nature of the political establishment, this and the previous Government. In 1994, 1995 and 1996 magnificent demonstrations of people power forced the abolition of water charges under a Fine Gael and Labour Party Government, but in the course of those campaigns we often raised the need for conservation measures to be included in building by-laws and regulations in Ireland. I spoke about this issue often after I first entered the Dáil in 1997 and stressed that developers should be required to incorporate significant water conservation measures in the homes and buildings they constructed. These measures are simple and widely known and include dual-flush toilets, rainwater harvesting and other engineering measures that could be incorporated into homes, workplaces and industrial buildings to save a significant amount of expensively treated water. Since 1997, 500,000 new homes, including houses and apartments, have been built, but nothing significant has been done to compel developers and the construction industry to make the changes suggested. As a result, this year and every year, billions of litres of pristine drinking water purified at taxpayers' expense goes down the sewers, yet the Government has the audacity to lecture us on the need for water conservation. Conservation has now disappeared from the agenda and been wiped off the Government's map by the changes contained in the Bill. The water metering programme was supposed to be a great conservation project, but now we have been told there will be a flat charge for four or five years and there has been no honest comment on what happened to the conservation crusade, which is incredible.

From the beginning we said charging for water, setting up the quango that was Irish water and metering most homes were steps in a process of commodification that could lead to the privatisation of the Irish water supply. The manner in which Telecom Éireann was privatised with disastrous consequences, having been built on the taxes of the people, is comparable.

In the Bill the Government provides for the holding of a plebiscite before the privatisation of Irish Water, but this is more dishonest posturing. The idea of a plebiscite or referendum was suggested by, among others, the Green Party, but that party is responsible for water charges, given its capitulation with Fianna Fáil to the troika. As the crescendo of opposition to water charges grew this year, the Green Party reached for the fig leaf of a referendum to divert attention. That party was joined in this action by other individuals. I am not opposed to holding a referendum, but the key referendum would be on the abolition of water charges as this would end the possibility of privatisation. Multinational water companies from Europe and elsewhere such as Veolia will not be interested in taking charge of a natural resource like water when it has not been commodified. In any case, this is a spurious and dishonest trick because the Government cannot guarantee that a future Government will adhere to this legislation. Legislation can be changed as easily and as cynically as the Government is pushing through this Bill in two days in a non-debate. Another right-wing Government could change the legislation, remove the obligation to hold a plebiscite and privatise Irish Water.

The Bill is full of political trickery. The flat charge is €160 for a household with a single adult and €260 for a household with two or more adults, but nobody is fooled by these measures. Everybody knows that the initial charges proposed would have seen a family with four adults paying €483 and a family with five adults paying €585 and they know that charges will rise towards these levels as soon as the cap is removed. As we explained, if metering was taken into account, families with four and five adults would see bills of €900, €1,000 and more based on water usage per individual. These figures were calculated in two serious studies, the most recent of which was sponsored by the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. Do not treat the people like fools.

They understand the political trickery, that to try to save the skins of Fine Gael and, particularly, Labour Party Deputies, the Government has come up with this cobbled together so-called compromise which it knows will not be worth the paper it is written on once the pressure is off. Of course, it cannot state the flat charges will be in place until 2019 because it cannot dictate what the Government that will follow will do. It is political trickery from start to finish, as is the so-called water conservation grant. The English language has been battered and bruised by vested interests, from the American military to politicians, in particular, throughout the past ten or 20 years, but to label this €100 a water conservation grant batters and abuses it somewhat more. Perhaps the Government might explain how the grant is related to conservation, as I certainly cannot see how it is. In fact, it provides for an incredible bureaucratic maze worthy of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, or, more correctly, Fine Gael and the Labour Party in "Blunderland", in Irish Water seeking to take money every quarter - how much it will get is another story - and then, sometime after September or October, the Department of Social Protection sending €100 back. How many public sector workers will be employed to implement this face-saving useless measure? It is incredible.

The penalties provided for in the Bill give the game away. What we have is a defeated Government that will not admit it has been defeated on the issue of water charges. Following a year in which there has been non-payment and a further three months, there will be penalties of €30 and €60 for a household with one adult and with two or more adults, respectively, to kick-in from April 2016, just after the date until which the Government can survive and a general election is held. In the most cynical fashion, the penalties will be applied beyond the date of the general election in the hope the Government can avoid conflict with ordinary people who will be boycotting the bills en masse. That is why the measure which provided for pressure reduction was removed. The Government understood it would be engaged in trench warfare in every constituency if it were to attempt to implement it.

All of this will not save the Government. The findings of the opinion poll carried in The Irish Timesyesterday show what is in store: Fine Gael's percentage is down, while the Labour Party, at 6%, is tittering over the precipice towards annihilation because of its betrayal of ordinary people in the past four years. On Wednesday next, 10 December, the mass mobilisation that will take place will be further evidence that the Government has not fooled anybody. If that demonstration does not convince it to abolish these charges, what will happen from April next year certainly will because the water tax - this austerity or bondholders' tax - will be greeted by a mass boycott. The findings of the opinion poll carried in The Irish Timestoday indicate that 33% will not pay, that 11% are undecided and that 48% say they will pay. The Government will be faced with a growing revolt as people gain confidence that they can win on the issue, just as people power won in the 1990s after a hard fought three year campaign. Therefore, there will be a mass boycott and a huge movement towards non-payment. We will see people power in action and if the Government does not concede before the general election, I am absolutely certain that the election will decide the issue.

Ba mhaith liom a rá maidir leis an mBille um Sheirbhísí Uisce 2014 gur mí-mhacántacht atá i gceist anseo ó thuas go deireadh, agus é ag teacht ó Rialtas atá bascaithe agus brúite ag gluaiseacht ollmhór - cumhacht na ngnáthdaoine - atá in aghaidh na cánach uisce atá an Rialtas ag iarraidh a thabhairt isteach. In ionad éisteacht leis na daoine agus fáil réidh leis na táillí uisce, tá siad, le cleasaíocht polaitíochta, ag iarraidh anois teacht amach as an bpoll ina bhfuileann siad. Ar ndóigh, mar a dúramar ó thuas, is cáin dhian í na táillí uisce, agus an t-airgead chun dul isteach sa pholl ollmhór atá fágtha tar éis billúin euro a aistriú gach bliain ó ghnáthdaoine na tíre seo go dtí margaí airgeadais na hEorpa.

Ar ndóigh, níl macántacht ar chor ar bith ag baint le haon chuid den reachtaíocht atá os ár gcomhair anseo inniu. Maidir le caomhnú uisce, mar shampla, le linn tréimhse an Rialtais seo nó tréimhse rialtais eile, ní árdaíodh méar chun céimeanna deimhne a thógaint chun uisce a shábháil nó a chaomhnú inár dtithe nó inár n-áiteanna oibre. Beidh an Rialtas ag rá, áfach, go bhfuil siad ag tabhairt isteach na táillí sin agus na méadair uisce chun uisce a chaomhnú. Tá, agus beidh, gluaiseacht ollmhór de chumhacht na ndaoine ag leanúint ar aghaidh i gcoinne na táillí seo. An tseachtain seo chugainn, beidh na mílte duine ar na sráideanna i mBaile Átha Cliath. Más rud é nach bhfaigheann an Rialtas réidh leis na táillí ina dhiaidh san, mí an Aibreáin seo chugainn beidh boycott ollmhór náisiúnta eagraithe. Ní féidir leis an Rialtas seo seasamh in aghaidh cumhacht na ndaoine. Ba cheart go dtabharfadh Fine Gael agus, go háirithe, Páirtí an Lucht Oibre ard ar an méid atá gnáthdaoine ag rá.

Geallaim é seo mar focal scoir. Más rud é go mbeidh na táillí seo ann agus olltoghchán orainn beidh deireadh le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre. Ní bheidh ach mórán ag teacht ar ais ar aon nós. B'fhéidir nach dtiocfaidh aon duine acu ar ais má leanann siad ar aghaidh ar an mbóthar seo. Tá sé sin cinnte. Sin atá á rá ag na gnáthdaoine. Is ar a bpriacal féin é más rud é nach bhfuil siad chun éisteacht leo.

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