Seanad debates

Wednesday, 13 January 2016

2:30 pm

Photo of David CullinaneDavid Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

It is fair for the Government Senators to point out to Fianna Fáil that it supported water charges initially. It is a fair political charge because it is the reality and it was part of the four year EU-IMF troika plan to which Fianna Fáil signed up. It is politics and we are going to have an election campaign. The facts of the position taken by all the parties should be put forward and we should have a robust debate on all of them. Water charges have been very emotive for many people for all sorts of reasons because people need water to survive. It is a very important issue.

When those of us who opposed domestic water charges, although not investment in water services, say we want water charges to be abolished, we are accused by the Government parties of fairytale economics and that it cannot be done. The cost of abolishing water charges would be €80 million. When one would strip out the conservation grant, which would go with it, the net cost would be €80 million. Yet the Government, especially Fine Gael - the Labour Party has its priorities and it will set them out in its manifesto and I believe it has committed to this too - has said that it will abolish in its entirety the universal social charge, which would cost €3.5 billion, which is 50 times more than what it would cost to abolish water charges. It seems that this type of auction politics is acceptable where billions can be promised. The first act of Fine Gael and the Taoiseach, Deputy Enda Kenny, is to say that their first priority would be to cut the top rate of USC that will benefit the top earners, the top 14%, who happen to be the same people who benefitted in terms of the last five Government budgets.Let us be realistic and honest about the propositions that are being put to people. Let us dismiss all of the nonsense tags that are being made. Tax cuts have been promised by Fine Gael which are irresponsible and cannot be met. The Government cannot say it will abolish the universal social charge and, at the same time, say it can deal with the housing crisis, the problems in the health service and the problems with floods, and give money to local government. It is simply not possible and, as the election goes on, people will see that.

Whatever propositions we put forward, as we have done every year with our alternative budgets, there is the matter of fiscal space. There is €7 billion of extra Exchequer funding over the next five years, as we are told by the Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and the Department of Finance. Any manifesto put before the electorate has to work within that fiscal space. Then it is a matter of political choices. What would each candidate do with that €7 billion over the course of five years?

One of the things we would want to do is abolish domestic water charges and the property tax. They are unfair and regressive. There is something fundamentally unfair about charging people for water in the first instance. It is also unfair for millionaires and very wealthy people to end up paying the same for these services as those on very low incomes and social welfare, including carers and people with disabilities. Many Senators will be going around the country knocking on doors and dealing with people who are in very dire straits. If they have not seen it already, they will then see that people are put to the pin of their collars.

I will accept that there is a recovery and will give the Government some credit for some of the policy decisions it has made. However, we also have a responsibility to hold the Government to account. There is nobody on the Government side who can say that the establishment of Irish Water was a success. It was an absolute disaster from start to finish. Hundreds of millions of euro in taxpayers' money were squandered, there is no doubt about that.

If domestic water charges are abolished, the question will then be how we fund our water services. We can do it through general taxation. We have commercial water charges in place. Domestic water charges are only a fraction of what is actually necessary to fund our water services. Billions of euro are already spent every year so €80 million in the grand scheme of things is not going to make or break investment in our water infrastructure. It would, however, make a difference to those families who were told that the property tax was going to fund local services, including water. No sooner was the property tax in place but it was followed by water charges.

There was a lot of sense in what Senator O'Donnell said about Fianna Fáil's arguments, even if it was a bit theatrical and obviously politically biased. She has an entitlement to make political charges. I do not accept the argument about checks and balances in respect of privatisation. My understanding is that a majority of Oireachtas Members is required, not 80%. All it takes is for a Government to decide we are going to privatise it and then the legislation can be changed by introducing a Bill which simply repeals the Bill the current Government brought in. That is why Members voted against the Bill. It was not just about some of the so-called protections that the Government was trying to pretend would paper over the cracks. We voted against the entire proposition of setting up Irish Water in the first place.

Let us remember that this Government brought in four different water services Bills. The first was guillotined in the Dáil after two hours of debate and, because of that, we were back within a short couple of months with the water services Bill mark II. Many people, including those on the Government side, raised concerns about water conservation and were not listened to. We should have a genuine debate about water services. Let us not pretend that abolishing water charges is fairytale economics; the parties that say so are promising billions of euro of tax cuts in the same breath and it just does not stack up. That is a debate we will have in the election campaign.

Water conservation and investment in water infrastructure are important but abolishing domestic water charges is not going to make or break all of that investment. It is a separate issue and we need to have a debate about the fiscal space that is available and how much of that money should or could be put into investing in our water infrastructure.

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