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

It is not acceptable in any sense, in particular in regard to the Water Services Bill, that a guillotine would be imposed. The Bill would have progressed much faster if the Minister had not come in here last week and tied himself up in knots, giving wholly contradictory figures to the Dáil and being unable to answer the legitimate and forensic questions from Opposition Deputies.

In regard to the ludicrous so-called conservation scheme, theoretically water charges will leave houses at the same time as social welfare bills will arrive to partly pay for them. The Minister could not answer the most basic questions and disappeared a third of a million households in providing only €130 million for so-called conservation grants. A grant of €100 would cost €165 million.

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