David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

There is an entire lack of honesty about this so-called grant. It is so dishonest it is outrageous. It would be far better if the Government and the Minister put their hands up and said that they were hoping to charge people more. The Commission for Energy Regulation, as we know, published our water charges plan. The average cost was to be €400. People came out and marched on the streets and rebelled against the tax and the charge. The Government had to do something about it. It floundered around trying to come up with some way to reduce the charge, and it came up with the water conservation grant. That is what it is; it is not a conservation grant. It was the Government's way to reduce the charge. We should at least be honest about that. There is no honesty here at all.

I would imagine the Minister will not be able to point to a single scrap of evidence as to how this conservation grant will lead to water being conserved. Why in God's name would the Department of Social Protection provide people with a grant to conserve water? Surely that is a matter for the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government. It is not a conservation grant. There is no relationship between water conservation and this so-called grant which is being paid. People will get that and they can do with it what they choose. The reason they are getting it is so that they can do with it what they choose because it is purely designed to reduce the cost of the charge to the user. If we had a bit of honesty about this-----