David Cullinane (Waterford, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the opportunity to make a statement and be part of this debate. I pose the following questions to the two Ministers present from the caretaker Government. Why were water charges such an issue? Why did they dominate political discourse for so long? Why were they such an issue in the election campaign? Why was water provision the issue that spooked both Fine Gael and the Labour Party over and over again into making mistake after mistake? Why did water charges force the party of water charges, Fianna Fáil, which had signed the State up to implementing them in the first place with the troika in the memorandum of association to eventually change its position for electoral gain? It was all to do with people power. The people rose up. They had had enough and saw water charges as a tipping point. Right across the State, in every town, village, community and almost every housing estate, the people rose up and marched in their tens of thousands against water charges. They saw them in terms of all the nasty, mean cuts made by Fine Gael and the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil before them. They came with all of the cuts made to social welfare payments and community services, all of the taxes brought forward and all of the damage done to pay back the bondholders, banks and property speculators. It was fantastic to be part of the Right2Water movement and march in protest with senior citizens, young people and children in a family-friendly atmosphere at rallies and protests. It was fantastic to see people from working class communities from all over the State coming together to say "No" to the charges because they knew that they were unfair and unjust. That is why Fine Gael and the Labour Party were spooked and why Fianna Fáil changed its position.

Deputy Lisa Chambers spoke about Sinn Féin sitting on its hands. We have heard this all the time from Fianna Fáil in the past few weeks. The reality is that when we were out on the streets standing shoulder to shoulder with trade unionists and people from communities across the State, there was no one there from Fianna Fáil. It sat on its hands and abandoned these communities when they needed support. It cynically used the issue of water charges as a pawn in a game. That is all it means to it. It is not sincere or genuine.

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