Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

Does the Tánaiste regard that as a principled position? It is a disgraceful thing to do, and none of her highfalutin' and condescending rhetoric can disguise that. People cannot afford these bills. The Tánaiste says she is acting on a proposal from the Law Reform Commission from a number of years back. That proposal does indeed exist, but the Tánaiste is not fooling anybody. This is all about Irish Water and the public resistance to an unfair imposition on struggling families. People see that this is the Government saying to the working poor - many of those struggling are at work, as I presume the Tánaiste knows - that it does not care about their living circumstances or their day-to-day struggles and that if they do not cough up it is going to stick its hand in their pockets anyway. That is the message people hear.

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