Mary Lou McDonald (Dublin Central, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

For the delicate and gentle souls on the Fine Gael benches, I want to place on the record that I have impeccable manners, since good manners are now a concern for this brigade.

What have we learned in the course of this debate? The stand out lesson is that Fianna Fáil is on the wrong side of the Chamber. It seems that despite all the talk about new politics, there is a constant in Irish political life and that is that the word of Fianna Fáil means nothing. It carries the dubious distinction of committing a U-turn in that having dreamed up water charges it then resiled from them.

They subsequently gave a commitment, black on white, on the abolition of Irish Water and the scrapping of water charges, with a U-turn on that as well. I suppose that might be called a W-turn, something that has been created by the shiny new politics of the Fianna Fáil Party.

If they have any interest in new politics, I suggest to Fianna Fáil Party colleagues that they should at least be up-front. They clearly support the efforts of Fine Gael and their allies to impose an unfair charge that takes no account of ability to pay of low and middle income families across this jurisdiction. Despite their protestations to the contrary, they are intent on establishing an infrastructure in Irish Water that will be ripe for privatisation to line the pockets of various individuals and vested interests. In fairness, these are the very interests they represent in this Chamber.

New politics should mean the voices of the people are heard, and I do not mean that as a cliché. New politics should mean that when people tell the Government it has done something wrong, that they want a different approach and they cannot bear another charge on their already strained household budget, the Government would surely to goodness listen, respect them and not regard itself as so superior and clever that it can simply set such concerns aside. The main reason people in the communities I represent deeply resent this charge is because they want to know now and in the future that they will have a guaranteed supply of domestic water free of charge. They are people who struggle and are on small incomes. Those opposite should try to wrap their heads around that as they pontificate on new politics.

The Minister for Social Protection, Deputy Varadkar, decided to argue on an uncontested point. He gave us a homily on the need for a single public body. That is correct and it is a point of agreement. As I understand it, the only people dissenting, perhaps, from that view are the Fianna Fáil Members. The Government does not have to worry about them as they will do whatever the Government needs them to do. The public body is not Irish Water but rather the mother and father of all quangos. It is a money pit, a waste of money and effort. If the Government imagines for a second that it will rehabilitate Irish Water and make all the bad memories go away, commission or no commission, it will find itself sadly mistaken.

The Minister for Public Expenditure and Reform, Deputy Donohoe, has a brass-iron neck to stand in this Chamber and issue a kind of threat to the population that it is water charges or else. He has suggested that the Government will charge for the water in the tap because if it does not do so then hospital services and the housing supply issue will be affected. How dare he stand here and speak about opportunity costs? Would Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil like to set out the opportunity cost in the abolition of the universal social charge? Do they wish to set out the opportunity cost in constantly cosseting and rewarding the haves and constantly punishing the have-nots? Does that factor in the thinking of the new political dispensation? This might be old politics but this is truthful and honest politics. This is the politics of standing up for people. It is the politics of keeping one's word. Perhaps it is those old values that might inform a new politics if it were to be truly marked by integrity.

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