Mick Barry (Cork North Central, Solidarity) | Oireachtas source

When the OECD recently said that Ireland should reintroduce water charges, the Taoiseach was very quick out of the traps to say that he ruled it out categorically. He did that for a couple of reasons. First, Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael had their fingers badly burned in the past decade when there was a mass movement against water charges. Second, I believe and hope there is an understanding that the reintroduction of water charges in the 2020s would make what happened in the past decade look like a tea party.

However, I wish to warn the Taoiseach and the Government on two matters. First, the excessive use charge can amount to a charge of €500 on a household. It also has the potential to be a water charge for large numbers of people through the back door if the thresholds are pushed in a downward direction. I can guarantee that any attempt by the Government to take that road will meet with a major reaction. Second, the OECD report did not just refer to water charges; it also called for increased waste charges and carbon tax, for people to be made to pay for their parking at work and so forth. Again, I warn the Government that any attempt to make working people carry the can for the environmental crisis that has fundamentally been caused by the big business polluters will not wash and will meet with a reaction.

Our water and water treatment services must be in public ownership. That referendum must go forward. If the local authority workers take industrial action to defend their jobs and to stay in a council, as opposed to being pushed into Irish Water, a company that could be privatised, they will have my full support and, I am confident, the support of the working people of this country.

In conclusion, we need a Covid-19 wealth tax. That would be the source of increased funding in water and water treatment services, not water charges on the backs of ordinary people.

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