Barry Cowen (Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Fianna Fáil supports this legislation, which is a direct result of the confidence and supply arrangement of April 2016. This Bill brings to an end the disastrous water charges regime brought in by Fine Gael and the Labour Party. Now, only those who wilfully waste water after continued warnings will have to pay a fine. All paid bills will be fully refunded. It is a fair outcome to a deeply difficult issue. It is now time to draw a line under this issue and focus our attention on the greater challenges of health, housing and Brexit that face our country today.

Water charges were the straw that broke the back of many ordinary working families across Ireland. The groundswell of opposition to them bears testament to the depth of feeling working people had against a charge they knew was not necessarily going towards their water services. However, it was not the politics of thuggery that defeated water charges. This Bill is the outcome of long debates and hard-fought compromises. Fianna Fáil opposed a charge that cost the State more than it made and hit working families regardless of their ability to pay. After the inconclusive election where voters rejected the broken promises of Fine Gael and the Labour Party, we worked to give our voters a voice. While other parties and Deputies took a ten-week break, our party took the responsible path in reaching an agreement to put in place a stable Government. The pathway to the end of the failed water charges regime was laid out in detail in the confidence and supply arrangement. The work of the expert commission and the Oireachtas Joint Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water Services has led to this Bill. Over 22 meetings and detailed discussions, a clear route forward was set out. As a result of that work, we have secured the end of the failed water charges regime, equity of treatment between those who paid and those who did not, an increase in supports for rural dwellers and reform of Irish Water. This outcome was the result of engagement and compromise, the stuff of responsible politics.

It is important to take note of the water charges fiasco that has culminated in this legislation. Many commentators have criticised the decision to end water charges but have failed to acknowledge the reasons the policy failed. If centre ground politics is to have a future, it must recognise where mistakes have been made, take responsibility for them and work to rectify them. Stubbornness should not be mistaken for bravery, indifference should not be confused with principle and rigidity should not be viewed as firmness. This is not a technocracy. Both responsibility and responsiveness must be joined together in a functioning democracy. We must have the bravery to see where things have gone wrong and address them.

This Bill sets about bringing a failed and democratically rejected policy to an end. I want to reiterate the chronicle of failures. By every measure the water charges regime introduced by Fine Gael and the Labour Party utterly failed to achieve its objectives. After a dizzying series of more than 12 U-turns, the Government lost money on domestic water tariffs. In 2015, only 53% of bills due were paid. Some €100 million was spent on the water grant while €41 million is due in interest

repayments over the year and another €25 million on administration costs. On this basis, the State lost €22 million in total on its water charges regime in 2015. Water charges have cost the State money. This is important for all Deputies and stakeholders to remember. We had a tax that cost the State money.

This policy debacle, combined with the failure to pass the EUROSTAT test, meant that the very reason Irish Water and water charges were introduced was completely lost. No additional revenue was available for investment in the water infrastructure due to domestic water charges. It was not off balance sheet or able to garner new revenues. The water network was no better off and indeed suffered from Government cutbacks to capital investment. It is against this backdrop that ending water charges must be set, not any hypothetical best-case scenario.

I know the former Minister, Deputy Alan Kelly, has been deeply critical of this decision, criticisms he has voiced both inside and outside this House. Deputy Kelly reminds me of Japanese soldiers in remote islands of the Pacific who were still fighting the Second World War in the mid-1970s.

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