Thomas Pringle (Donegal, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I fully support the motion and I signed it. We could do the country a service and save a lot of money by ending the work of the so-called "expert group" right now if Fianna Fáil Members were to vote the way they say they intend to vote to abolish water charges once and for all. We all know what the expert group is going to say. It will say that water charges should be maintained. It will be interesting, then, to see the twisting and turning by Fianna Fáil over that debate. I imagine the debate on the commission's report will be delayed and delayed, possibly until after the next general election. Fianna Fáil will avoid making the decision until it is in government and then it will do another U-turn to bring water charges back in again.

We have got to this stage because of a mass boycott of payment of water charges, not because of mass opposition to water charges. The boycott has made Irish Water unworkable and the Right2Water campaign has shown that there is huge opposition to it, with hundreds of thousands of people taking to the streets on more than eight occasions. Fianna Fáil will have set up its focus groups, done its surveys and will have seen that opposition to water charges is still there and that is why it has made a submission calling for charges to be abolished. The campaign is as strong as it has ever been when one looks at the crowds that took to the streets in Dublin last Saturday week to keep the pressure on for the abolition of charges. However, we need more than that. It is reported in the newspapers today that the Greek Government voted last night to privatise water in Greece and ultimately the aim of Fine Gael, of Fianna Fáil and of the European Commission is to ensure water and public utilities are privatised in the future. That is why a hugely expensive investment and metering programme is taking place across the country through Irish Water.

Deputy Jan O'Sullivan said earlier on that Irish Water came in to replace shared services in her estate that had lead connections but it only replaced the shared services. Why was that? It was because it could not charge or bill people on shared services. Irish Water did not care about the people with lead connections who had individual services because it can bill them.

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