Catherine Murphy (Kildare North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Normally after a Bill is published, on Second Stage we get an explanatory memorandum. It would have been very interesting to see the explanatory memorandum for these amendments. It is not just the water-related amendments, but also the other amendments relating to waste, some of which are quite good. Perhaps others could have been added and there may have been a number of missed opportunities. Essentially, the absence of such an explanatory memorandum is part of a deliberate circumventing of the process and is fundamentally dishonest.

Many things have been dishonest in recent years. People were told that the core rates of social welfare were not cut. However, for example, there were cuts through changing the length of time one could qualify for some of the additional things in the household benefit package. We were told the money collected for the household charge was about something additional and then discovered that it was a replacement for part of the local government fund that was withdrawn. The same applied with the property tax. It is a replacement tax. A fund that was ring-fenced for water has been transferred essentially to central funds to be transferred to Irish Water.

The common thread in all this is dishonesty and presuming that people are fools.

People do not like being taken for fools and they will not be taken for fools. Deputy Paul Murphy is right. There is an engagement in the detail of politics that I have never seen and I was on a local authority for 20 years before becoming a Member of this House. There is an attention to detail in politics that is different now because people feel they have to pay attention as many of the things that happen will impact on them personally.

I am not sure what genius thought this was going to be a good idea to circumvent the process but it is not a good idea. The Minister of State may have read out part of what Deputy Phelan said but the last part of what she said when I pressed her for the detail was that it was only a matter of “dotting i’s and crossing t’s” and it is not. The transfer of €540 million from the motor taxation fund to the Exchequer and then to Irish Water is no minor deal and people know it. People also know it is being transferred because there is insufficient funding coming from the source the Government hoped would be there, the water charges. There is no doubt that there is significant resistance. We know that in part because the Government will not tell us the payment rates. Every week we were told how many people were signing up. That was used almost as a marketing initiative. People can read into that and know exactly what it means when the Government does not provide the information. They know the amount being demanded now will significantly alter if the full cost recovery model the Government envisages is put in place. There are many people who, with the best will in the world, do not have anything more to give. I do not how many times that has been said in this House. I have knocked on the doors of households which might be regarded as doing alright but the people have said they may seem to be alright because they have a nice house but look in the fridge. There is nothing in reserve. That is one of the messages coming very strongly from this.

The Minister of State is right, motor tax, which is the main source of local government funding, did pay for water and wastewater. The rainbow coalition in the 1990s resolved the deficit in local government funding by ringfencing the motor tax fund. That is why people feel they have already paid and what is being demanded is that they pay a second time. I have no doubt there is a need to build a decent water infrastructure, that we have to change our habits in respect of water and water conservation but there is a lot of nonsense being spoken about the entire system being defunct. For example, the best we can hope for in the leakage rate is that anything below 20% is unlikely to be achieved even in the best situations. In my own local authority the rate of leakage is 25%. It does not take a genius to figure out that the leaks are in the old Victorian pipes. Most of the money spent so far has been spent on getting the institutional arrangement in place, setting up a database, a call centre and putting in metres. Going after the areas where there are the most leaking pipes has not been the primary concern. People cannot understand that. Taking the €540 million out of the local government fund for this is another item on the list of things that are dishonest. That is what is undermining democracy.

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