Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

Even under the supposed Irish Water enhanced investment plan, at its height it will only reach €600 million. That is one third less than what was spent in 2007. Where is the rest of the money going? It is going into the pockets of highly paid executives, consultants and private contractors. That is the truth. It is not going into fixing the pipes or the water infrastructure but into lining the pockets of the same old gang. There is no change and no new politics.

I conclude by saying that despite all that and despite the political games, the commitment to the same failed policies, the denials by the Labour Party of its complicity in those failed policies, and the amnesia it seemed to suffer over that fact, there is great hope, because for the first time in the history of this State neither of the two parties that have dominated the politics of this State will control this Dáil fully. We saw a little sign of the impact of genuinely new politics with the effect that the mass movement against water charges has had on all of them. We still have not won, but, my God, they have been forced to backtrack because of the power of ordinary people, whom those two parties, and much of the media, have vilified, disgracefully describing them in one article as being like the barbarian hordes, when in fact they are ordinary people who have been battered by unfairness, injustice and austerity for the past eight years because of the failure of the political establishment. They are close to a triumph on the issue of water charges and, as we all know, that battle was only a symptom of the much wider desire of ordinary people for fairness, equality and social solidarity. That is not something that will be delivered by this programme for Government, but it will be delivered by the movement of people power that we have seen on the streets for the past few years.

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