Maurice Quinlivan (Limerick City, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I welcome today's motion to end the shambolic policy of water charges. This motion is supported by 39 Deputies, all of whom signed up to the Right2Water campaign. A motion to scrap water charges should have been debated in the House weeks ago, but between them Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil saw to it that the democratic will of the people was thwarted and that no such debate took place.

In my constituency, Limerick, 60% of those who voted opposed water charges. As we debate today's motion, I have absolutely no doubt that nobody voted, campaigned or marched for a deferment of what they rightly saw as an unfair tax.

Today's motion gives us, as elected representatives, the opportunity to do away with this onerous tax and by so doing implement the democratic will of the people who elected us. There can be no ambiguity whatsoever about this. The failure to support today's motion by voting against it, abstaining or supporting a watered-down motion, as Fianna Fáil is trying to do, is not what the majority of people voted for in the last election. Fianna Fáil may think it can play its usual brand of sneaky double-standard politics with this issue but, rest assured, it is fooling nobody.

The provision of clean water is an essential public service that is recognised by the United Nations as a basic human right. Therefore, water for domestic usage should be freely available to everyone and retained in public ownership. Water charges discriminate against working people and the unemployed in favour of the well-off. They are another regressive tax taking vital money out of the pockets of ordinary people and, by extension, out of the local economy. Sinn Féin is a key part of the Right2Water campaign and is committed to abolishing household water charges. I am proud that this is our party's first Private Members' motion. This is what we said we would do and, unlike Fianna Fáil and the Labour Party, if we give a commitment we keep it.

Some 90% of the water used in this country is used by large corporations, but only 10% is used by domestic householders. Under the Fine Gael and Labour Party Government plan, householders would bear 80% of the costs and subsidise water for big business, setting the stage for privatisation. The current Fianna Fáil-controlled puppet Government is no better, with its long-fingered plan to suspend charges temporarily as it awaits the findings of the commission. No one should be fooled by Fianna Fáil and its born-again mantra of being against water charges. If it was genuinely against water charges, now is its chance to get rid of them. However, in keeping with classic Fianna Fáil tactics, it has once again kicked the ball into touch in the hope that charges will go away, but they will not.

Water charges originated with Fianna Fáil. It signed up to them with the troika, and Cabinet papers revealed it intended to charge every household €500 for water. The fudge of wavers and allowances, and now the suspension or deferment cooked up between the two establishment parties, are not acceptable. People voted with their feet through Right2Water and they made their voices heard again at the ballot box. Water charges must go and they must go now.

The message is simple. A majority of Deputies in this Chamber were elected on a mandate to scrap water charges. The vast majority of people voted to scrap water charges. The latest figures released from Irish Water show that people are not paying this unfair tax. Deputies elected on an anti-water charges platform have a duty to vote in favour of this motion and not the amended version which seeks to suspend charges. Above all, the Government must respect the democratic will of the people expressed at the ballot box and scrap the charge.

See this speech in context