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

Absolutely. The arguments have been rehearsed fairly extensively in the past year or two and there is probably not much point in dragging this torture out in terms of the Bill and what the Minister plans to do. The decision of the people on water charges has been made. They reject them but sadly the Government is not listening. If the Government is not brought down by this issue before the appointed time for a general election, it is signing its political death warrant by persisting with these issues. I am not saying that as a rhetorical point, it is just a fact. I do not really get it. Whatever the Government may have thought at the beginning, it is worth saying one thing. The Minister's party specifically told the people before the last election that it would not do this, but it did it. We have had the unprecedented popular mobilisation against water charges and the people have said they do not want them. I do not understand why the Government persists when the people have so decisively rejected them given that it is not so long since the parties themselves rejected it. Why does it persist with this when there is no rationale, no mandate and no justification for it?

The suggestion that these charges are reasonable or affordable and will stay that way is preposterous. There is simply no evidence that can be pointed to anywhere that charges go in any direction other than up rapidly once introduced for a service that once upon a time was provided to everybody, without user charges, and paid for through general taxation. Everywhere it has been done, the charges have rocketed. It is not credible to suggest the charge will be kept affordable and that the Bill and its provisions will keep it affordable when we know that charges will go up and up and that there will be pressure from the European Union for full-cost recovery.

It is worth stating once again that the EU treaties are clear on the pressure they will exert on any utility. I have more or less learned off the passage in the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union. It states that any utility or service that has the character of a revenue producing monopoly will be subject to the rules of the treaties, in particular the rules of competition. Once user charges are introduced, Irish Water has the character of a revenue producing monopoly. If it does not have charges, it does not have that character. Once it has charges, it becomes a revenue producing monopoly and, therefore, it becomes subject to the rules of the treaties, particularly in the area of competition. That means charges in terms of the legal provisions of EU treaties become the prelude to privatisation, no matter what the Government says. Private companies will be able to use those treaty provisions to demand the right to tender for those services. Therefore, the process of privatisation will be inevitable once user charges are introduced. As I said earlier, the process has started already given that most of the work has been outsourced to private consultants and private contractors. In effect, off-balance sheet financing is privatisation because it means the bondholders will be able to put pressure and demands on Irish Water. Once charges are introduced, all of these things follow inexorably. That is why the Government should not do it. It does not have a mandate to do it and we all know where it is leading.

I wish to make a point I have made once or twice here. There has not been a real response from the Government and it has not got out into the general debate and discussion. My fears and concerns about it were underlined by the experiences recounted by the people who came from Detroit this week. They said that what they called the financialisation of Detroit Water was a key prelude to the charges rocketing through the roof. In other words, the use of off-balance sheet financing, bonds and so on essentially became the main pressure to jack up the charges.

Another thing they said, which was really interesting and, frankly, quite scary, was that the bill for water in was a tiny fraction of the bill for water out. The same as the Government is doing here, its charges are divided into water in and water out. The charge for water in was - I will not say reasonable - in this stratosphere in that it was a couple of hundred dollars but the charge for water out was three times that amount and brought it up to close to $3,000, making it unaffordable and the reason tens of thousands of people in Detroit have had their water cut off, an absolutely despicable move. There is something else I did not know which may shock the House a little more. If one's water supply is cut off for more than two days, one's children are taken away. That is the sort of barbarism that is happening in the US.

I am not saying this will happen next week but the Minister is now starting the process, and that is how it has happened everywhere else. The issue has not moved in any other direction. The assurances given to us are not credible, given the experience of every other place in the world. The charges go up, the water companies are privatised and there are demands for money and so on at every turn for fixing leaks, etc. This means affordability is left behind for the majority of people, leading to threats of being cut off, regardless of what is in preliminary legislation.

The elements relating to water egressing from premises have confirmed a fear that arose from reading the General Conditions for a Water and Wastewater Connection Agreement document from Irish Water. I do not know if the Minister has read it but it details the conditions that every customer of Irish Water commits to, although most probably will not have read it. The document is on the website and it outlines the conditions of being a so-called Irish Water customer. In the section dealing with obligations of the customer, section 1.9.7 indicates "The Customer shall not allow the discharge of rainwater run-off from roofs, paved areas or other surfaces into any Sewer, except as may otherwise be agreed in advance with Irish Water in writing". What is that about? Why would Irish Water require a written agreement - as every Irish Water customer will be giving a commitment to do this - demanding that if the customer has water running off the roof, windows or paving stones going into the wastewater system, there should be written consent from Irish Water? I would like the Minister to explain that.

I will tell him what I think it is about, as it is what happened in Bolivia and Detroit. As the charges are for water out as well as water in, people may try to save money on bills by harvesting water to minimise the water coming in. That water will go into a wastewater system so they will not be rewarded for water conservation and using less treated water coming in; they will be charged for it instead. In Detroit, the charges for wastewater are more expensive than that for water coming in. People are not rewarded for water conservation but they are charged for it instead. The more water conserved, the bigger the charge. In Bolivia, Bechtel was thrown out by a massive two year-long popular revolt against the introduction of charges and the privatisation of water. When it was privatised, Bechtel sent inspectors to people's homes to check if they had equipment to harvest rainwater. If people harvested rainwater and the Bechtel employees saw the evidence, there would be a charge.

That is what this clause is about. It will not happen today or tomorrow but there is a legal basis in the agreement that gives Irish Water authority to do what I described. The charging system is set up in such a way as to allow for it as it deals with water coming in and going out. There must be a written agreement from Irish Water for any water out that has been harvested from the sky. It is not just about treated water and people will end up being charged for water from the sky. It is shameful. As if the entire issue is not enough of a debacle, fiasco and injustice on a massive scale, we have this to add to it.

Please do not give us any fake assurances, as that happened everywhere else. I have studied the agreements and they are probably cut and pasted from other international models. I have examined the wording of agreements for all the other private water companies in America and other parts of the world and it is always the same. There is a model for privatisation and charging that is being pursued by multinational corporations all over the world. That is the Irish Water model too, regardless of any assurances and promises from a Government whose credibility when it comes to promises is threadbare. This is yet another shocking aspect of the issue and another reason people are so right to resist it. The one happy consideration in all this is regardless of how much the Government refuses to listen to the will of the people and contempt it shows for it - as it has done over recent weeks - the people will triumph on this and charges will be defeated. The resistance will continue and defeat this obnoxious plan to steal people's resources and human rights from them in the interest of private companies. It will be resisted as successfully as it was in Bolivia. The Government which introduced these charges will fade in the dustbin of Irish political history.

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