David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

The Government then capped the charge. We spent a long time on our feet debating this with the previous Ministers, Deputies Hogan and O'Dowd, and they told us then that the central issue was water conservation because we were wasting too much water. They said what we needed was a system where we had water meters and people would pay for usage. They said there would only be one year of a capped charge and then it would be metered, because that was what the Bill and the charge were about. Of course, that went out the window when the Government extended the capped charge up to 2019. So much for the water conservation element. They are continuing with installing the water meters. I said at the time, and I stand over it now, that the meters were simply a cash register outside people's doors so they could introduce their poll tax, as Senator Barrett said. They are continuing with the meters anyway. The option of district metering should have been looked at as it would still allow the Government and the Department and Irish Water or whatever utility, to deal with wastage of water. It is cheaper to install, there are fewer meters, the technology is there. If it was really about water conservation and not charges we should have done that. It would have saved the State hundreds of millions of euro which could then have gone into fixing the systems which the Government Senators are blue in the face telling us are redundant, archaic and in need of upgrading. We all accept that they are. The PPS numbers have been abandoned. That was another major concern we raised with Ministers and we were told there was no concern. All of the amendments we tabled on that issue were dismissed. Independent and Fianna Fáil Senators also tabled amendments and all were dismissed out of hand. That is what happened.

If this Bill passes, and I hope it does not, the Government will bring in €95 million. That is the total amount that will be brought in next year. The problem I have with the charge and the so-called concessions is that this is only an introductory offer. What they really want is to get people to buy into the principle of the charge. Like the previous discussion on whether section 2 on holding a plebiscite is worth the paper it is written on, the commitment to cap the charges until 2019 is also not worth the paper it is written on. If we have a new Government in 2016 there is nothing stopping any future Government changing the charge. We would then end up having to pay more. The European policy, let us be very clear about this, is that there would be full cost recovery for water for domestic users over time. The full cost of treating water is then paid for----