Eoin Ó Broin (Dublin Mid West, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

A majority of the Deputies elected to the House were elected on manifestos which included a commitment to scrap water charges, yet every time Sinn Féin has forced a vote on the matter, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have stitched it up to keep the issue of water charges alive. The people voted for abolition of this unjust charge, but what did Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael do? In a stitch-up they suspended the charges for nine months and appointed a so-called expert group to examine the issue. Now, in another stitch-up, they are interfering with the committee, the job of which will be to discuss the expert group's report. All the while, Fianna Fáil keeps twisting and turning on the issue. It is the party that signed up to water charges in 2010, that called for their suspension in 2012 and their abolition in 2016, yet only last weekend Deputies Micheál Martin and Barry Cowen left the door open for the return of a water charging regime. With all of the U-turns and stitch-ups, is it any wonder it has tied itself up in knots on the issue?

My questions are very simple. Will the Government withdraw from its attempt to impose a Chairman on the special committee on the funding of domestic water services? Will it put an end to the Fianna Fáil-Fine Gael stitch-up on water charges? Will it respect the democratic will of the people and allow us to vote on scrapping these unwanted and unjust charges?

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