Richard Bruton (Dublin Bay North, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

-----an opportunity to deliberate on this and arrive at the consensus approach. The commission has done very valuable work in showing elements of fairness that must be respected: the fair treatment of those who paid their water charges, the fair treatment of those who have paid for water for years through water schemes, group schemes and so on, and fairness in the sense that if some people use water excessively and plainly waste a resource that is very costly to produce, the general taxpayer should not have to carry the cost of that behaviour. Important issues of fairness must, therefore, be teased out by the committee, and we look forward to that.

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