Pat Buckley (Cork East, Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It seems like a very long time ago that Sinn Féin started to raise the alarm about water charges and water privatisation. We had always maintained vigilance against the creeping privatisation agenda of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael but we rightly saw in the economic chaos caused by the mismanagement of the economy and banking system what some would relish as an opportunity to asset strip the State and accelerate that process. The political fellow travellers of the Irish right in Europe, which designed a bailout programme to save their own corrupt banking systems also saw this opportunity and proceeded with even greater gusto than the Government at the time or others could have imagined. We were told that water charges were no longer prohibited, as claimed by Fianna Fáil a few years earlier, but an actual imperative for the Irish State and that anything less would be deeply irresponsible. To please our European master who had so graciously allowed us to do penance for sins we had not committed and to avoid the shame of being labelled by such paragons of virtue as defaulters, we were forced to introduce an entirely nonsensical, unfair double taxation on a basic human right.

The asset stripping had already begun in earnest and now our water services were on the auction block too. Many in the political elite or media doubted in public our claims that this was the start of privatisation. They did this shamelessly even as bin services across our capital city provided the perfect model for anyone who cared to look. The classic tactics of privatisation were on display- run down services, introduce charges, create a revenue stream and then sell to whatever cartel will take the service off one's hands. The rapidly disimproving service to bin customers was also clear evidence of the flaws in this kind of behaviour. Later we would see bin charges hiked, workers mistreated and even lockouts.

Sinn Féin and others were primed to mount a campaign of opposition. Despite our readiness to oppose this and our absolute understanding of the agenda of privatisation behind it, even we were taken aback by the overwhelming opposition by the public to this move. The Irish people utterly rejected these charges. Many working-class communities, especially those who had put faith in the ever unfaithful Labour Party, simmered with a palpable anger compounded by cuts at every other turn. An austerity Government which had taken so much was not going to be charging people for every drop of water, whether to make a cup of tea, bathe the children or do a load of washing. The spirit which saw families waiting at their driveways to launch their rubbish into passing bin lorries in defiance of the bin charges was ignited again, not just in Dublin but all across the entire State. Community organisations against water charges sprang up everywhere. People who had not known one end of a placard from another threw themselves into the action and became known as water warriors.

However, this was about so much more than water. It was about working-class people coming together and finally say "enough is enough". They had taken so much and had borne too heavy a load for too long. They had worn the green jersey only to discover it was all a myth. They would not let the Government take the water from the taps as well. They faced every slur from the political elite and media imaginable, including comparisons to ISIS and to feral animals. The Dáil debased itself more than ever in recent memory in its discussion of this amazing grassroots movement of mothers, fathers, sons and daughters. There are quite a few in this House who should be truly ashamed of the slurs they cast on the working-class people who organised the resistance, particularly those who, from ivory towers, sought to send children to prison.

Most shocking of all is that the warriors won. They gave Fine Gael one almighty bloody nose at the ballot box, having pounded the streets of Ireland for months. They nearly drove the Labour Party out of existence, though really the blame for that lies at its own door. They made water charges the point past which Fine Gael, the Labour Party and Fianna Fáil could not - try as they might - go. They did our country proud, when we had been so shamed by the actions of the few. A risen people took what the Government would not give and here we are, talking about refunds of water charges. This Government would do well to let that really sink in and know when it is beaten. What it needs to do now is scrap the whole plan for good. Water charges are not coming back, not in the way the Government tried before nor by stealth. We know that is the Government's plan. It has not changed. The right never does. The Government thinks it will eventually get rid of all the responsibilities of state and free itself from doing anything that goes beyond helping its friends in high places to make more money and step on those under them.

That is why we demand that Irish water be protected as a public utility, always in public hands, run by public bodies and paid for by public money raised from progressive and fair taxation. The privatisation agenda for water is dead and the Government must now act as the people have demanded. That is what Deputies are elected to do. We are in here to listen to the people and to represent their views. I appeal to the Government to bring forward the Thirty-fifth Amendment of the Constitution (Water in Public Ownership) (No. 2) Bill 2016 and enshrine water in public ownership. It must get its ducks in a line and make it happen. Let the Dáil vote on that Bill and then put the question to the people. Let the people show the Government what they want. Perhaps the Government is afraid of what the people want. Does the Government finally want to admit that privatisation is the endgame as it sees it? Let us have it out tonight and admit that. It is not fair on the people that we are supposed to represent. Regardless, that ship has sailed. The people have spoken loudly and clearly on the streets, in their communities and at the ballot box. The Government must give up any pretence that its agenda has not been soundly rejected by the people. It must put this issue in the hands of the people in order that they can ensure our water services never fall into the grubby hands of the Government's friends.

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