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

In fact, they almost sound like the Minister, Deputy Simon Coveney, on this issue. The decisions, however, on charges and meters have nothing to do with EU law. The Oireachtas Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services received nine separate pieces of legal opinion from six different legal sources, each of which gave conflicting legal advice. One senior counsel on mature reflection gave two conflicting sets of advice on the final draft report within a matter of days. The only conclusion that any reasonable person can draw from all of this is that there is no legal consensus on the matter.

Perhaps the greatest irony in this fake legal debate is that Ministers - past and present - who presided over flagrant breaches of EU water and environmental law that will result in hefty fines for the taxpayers of the State have a cheek to lecture the rest of us on legal compliance. I have no doubt that the State can be fully compliant with the environmental objectives of the Water Framework Directive without metered domestic water charges. They do it in Scotland and in Northern Ireland and there is simply no reason that we cannot do it here.

Fine Gael’s victory is not really a victory at all. The distance the party has been dragged, kicking and screaming, by the Right2Water movement since 2014 is enormous. Fine Gael's failed efforts to introduce some kind of water charge regime is on its very last legs. Any attempt to use the room granted this week - by the grace of Fianna Fáil - to introduce water charges through the back door will be met with the same mass campaign that dogged and ultimately put a halt to the political careers of the Minister's predecessors. We will be watching the progress of the legislation arising from the water committee’s report very closely and we will continue to hold Fianna Fáil to its election commitments. Having spoken with the other pillars of the Right2Water movement - the communities, trade unions and other political parties and independents - we are giving a commitment here today that we will continue to mobilise on the streets and through every possible means until our goal of a publicly owned and funded water and sanitation service, delivered on the basis of need and not ability to pay, is in place to meet the needs of the entire community.

We have heard much about an agreement between the two parties. The more I read the crucial amendment to the report agreed by Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael, the more I realise that they have not resolved the core tensions that led to the heated debate - ten hours this week and seven hours last week - between the two parties. The legislation will be very interesting. Many of the arguments we had in the committee will be replayed on the floor of the House when the legislation is published. There is no agreement, for example, on what is the proper metric for the threshold for excessive use.

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Crucially, that will only be able to be applied to households that have meters. What the two parties are proposing is an excess use charge that will apply to 60% of the population only. That may or may not be constitutional and it certainly will not be fair or popular, including with Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil voters.

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