Ruth Coppinger (Dublin West, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

I wish to speak to amendments Nos. 16 and 18. It is very clear that there are alternative sources of income that could be considered rather than levying water charges in the first place. I wish to comment on what has been included and excluded from the Bill. There has been a big panic in the media to get repayments into the pockets of people before Christmas. It seems to be something the Government is using to attack the Opposition which is raising serious questions about the Bill. No amount of repayments back in the pockets of people before Christmas and the creation of a feel-good factor is going to save votes or anything else in terms of water charges. It is not justified to rush through bad legislation in order to do that. The Minister could have introduced a separate Bill to repay the charges if that was so important.

While it is all very quiet tonight, it is quite momentous because this legislation is, on the one hand, a victory and recognition of the massive movement that took place three years ago against the water charges. At the time this country was in a serious political crisis as a result of the mobilisation of people and the boycott that took place. The Government of the day had to rush through new legislation and here we are again with another piece of legislation. The potential is still there to reintroduce water charges in the future through the excessive usage policy by gradually lowering the limits and we object to that. The Government should recognise defeat.

It is a bit bizarre to rule out a referendum in the Bill, in addition to conservation measures. Even though it is a water services Bill, we are not allowed to propose conservation measures. Does that not suggest that it was never about conservation in the first place?

Amendment No. 16 calls on the Minister to report to the Dáil within six months of the enactment of the Bill on the number of private domestic swimming pools and large water features that exist. The wasters of water that we heard about for the past three years are not ordinary households, but there are very wealthy people who are profligate in their use of water. I visited some picket lines of Irish Rail workers today. The issue is very pertinent to taxation and the proposed charges. One of the key issues that was raised was the strike but the second key issue was the Paradise Papers. There is a very high level of awareness among working-class people about the extent of tax evasion and tax avoidance that is going on. I will refer to some of the kinds of measures that could have been incorporated into the Bill. If we stopped opposing the European Commission's pursuit of Apple for back taxes, we would raise at least €17 billion. That is just one multinational that we found out about in the Paradise Papers but there are many more. A 2% millionaire’s tax on wealth could bring in €2.7 billion. Depending on the rate, a financial transactions tax could bring in anything up to €1 billion. The enforcement of the headline rate of corporation tax as the effective minimum rate could bring in €2 billion. A 10% increase in tax paid by the top 10% would bring in €2.7 billion. A host of measures could be taken to avoid the introduction of a tax that would have led to water poverty among other issues. We won on water charges and hopefully we can now go on to win on those other issues as well.

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