Richard Boyd Barrett (Dún Laoghaire, People Before Profit Alliance) | Oireachtas source

The thing that I do not understand is the failure to acknowledge the glaring hypocrisy and contradiction in the Government position.

This contradiction which was evident from the beginning continues and persists even now that the mass movement against water charges has forced it to retreat on the levying of domestic water charges on most people. I refer to the Government's consistent and dishonest attempts to justify its support for water charges by referring to the need for water conservation to deal with the water infrastructure problem and incentivise and encourage people to engage in water conservation measures. We never believed the Government; we always knew that the agenda was privatisation and getting a revenue stream because it had made several attempts before. If it is not going to stand up and admit it was lying to people, will the Minister please explain why he will not accept amendments which attempt to deal with water conservation and the big areas of water wastage? Most leaks are from water mains, with only 7% of water leaks in the system coming from individual households and the remainder coming from water mains. It was Fine Gael, and Fianna Fáil before it, which during the austerity period slashed the investment programme to deal with water mains. It was their fault that the water infrastructure got worse. It had nothing to do with opposition to water charges and everything to do with their decision to cut capital investment in water infrastructure.

Ironically, People Before Profit and Solidarity are the only parties to put forward in their budgets a real water conservation grant linked with implementing domestic water conservation measures. Why does the Government not support our proposal? Given that the Minister did not address this issue in his first reply, it seems that the Government has never been interested in water conservation, and that it is only interested in a back door to domestic water charges.

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