Tommy Broughan (Dublin Bay North, Independent) | Oireachtas source

As a Right2Change candidate, I too was elected with a mandate to abolish Irish Water and water charges. The general election results made the decision for us on that issue and the House should have been allowed to vote on it today.

As Deputy Bríd Smith said, the history of the introduction of the charges in Dáil Éireann was farcical and extremely undemocratic, with late night and guillotined debates. The former Minister, Mr. Phil Hogan, and the Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, clearly showed that they did not understand the basic economics of water charges and conservation and demonstrated a disgraceful misuse of taxpayers' money in the setting up of the quango Irish Water. During debates many Deputies, including me, put the figures and questions to the Minister, but he had no answers to them. He did not have the basic economics of the issue worked out in any way, shape or form. He just ploughed ahead with the stubbornness that has devastated his party. A few days ago he said the abolition of water charges would make fools of people. However, it was he who made fools of them. He certainly made fools of Labour Party backbenchers, 80% of whom bit the dust in the recent contest.

Water charges were the straw that broke the camel's back, after the years of harsh austerity, cuts in health services, housing, disability payments, pensions, etc. and increases in taxes and charges. Ordinary people have said enough is enough, on which I congratulate them. The movement to abolish water charges was very powerful in my constituency, where groups such as Clare Hall Says No, Edenmore Says No and Coolock Says No were determined to get rid of this harsh imposition on the backs of the people.

In my earlier career, when I was chairman of Dublin City Council's general purposes committee, we oversaw the water supply system for Dublin and a chunk of mid-Leinster. We consistently asked Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael-led Governments for the money we needed from central taxation to run the system properly. Most other EU capital cities had standby reservoir reserves of 10% or 20%, but this was the only major capital city that did not have such a reservoir. Unfortunately, those Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil dominated Governments refused point blank to give us the money we needed. Irish Water and water charges must be abolished immediately.

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