Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Anti-Austerity Alliance) | Oireachtas source

I do not imagine the Minister has ever been at a community based anti-water meter protest. Therefore, I will give him some flavour of what it is like. It is a community event. It is not like a bill coming into one's letterbox, it is like Irish Water crews coming into one's community. Discussion starts in the community and members of it begin to get organised. Cars are driven around scouting for the Irish Water meter vans. People are watching and waiting; they are texting and going on Facebook. Women in particular come out and organise. They go door to door and get other women and neighbours to come out and join the protest.

I have sat here listening to the Minister several times in recent weeks say that with the new water commission he wants to take the heat out of the water charges issue. Carrying on with water metering is precisely how he will not do that. How does he square the contradiction between those two?

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