The Government has not managed to “brainwash” people about water charges, which remain a revenue raising and not a conservation issue, Independent TD Catherine Murphy has claimed.
“People are not fools,” she said. “People will see the back-pedalling for what it is, an attempt to pacify, to soothe, to buy time, to coerce people into submission”.
Speaking in advance of the announcement this afternoon by Minister for the Environment Alan Kelly about the future of Irish Water and charges the public will have to pay, Ms Murphy said the Government could not talk about a flat charge and conservation in the one sentence.
And she asked Taoiseach Enda Kenny to acknowledge that “this is not about conservation. This is about raising revenue.”
Mr Kenny rejected her claim and, saying the more leaks that are fixed the less waste and the greater the saving to the taxpayer, so the cost of producing water is less.
He also suggested the creation of a people’s forum with Irish Water, with ordinary citizens dealing directly with the authority.
Mr Kenny said they could not continue with a situation where raw sewage was flowing into bays and rivers or where 500 treatment works that supply water were in an inferior condition.
The Taoiseach said people “want clarity, confidence, they want to understand about affordability”.
Ms Murphy said they would not be talking about clarity and affordability if they had not had the “game changer” of the protest march in October when 100,000 people demonstrated. “That’s why we’re here today.”
When Irish Water was formally established on January 1st, development contributions from builders, “which would have been a key part in funding the capital projects, was pretty much dispensed with”, she said. No levies have been applied to planning permissions in relation to water and waste water for this year, “which I find quite astonishing”.
Charges would be raised with a dwindling State subvention and there would be new borrowing that customers of Irish Water will be liable for.
The cost of Irish Water will not have changed because of the announcement today, she added. “The metering programme will still cost over €1 billion. The consultants and experts will still have been paid €80 million and the quango will still exist.”
She called on the Taoiseach to “hear the actual message from the people”, rather than “treating citizens like petulant children who need more time to accept things”.
She said the actual message was that the people “will not pay for a super inflated quango. We do not want to be Irish Water customers.”
She said that when Irish Water was established there was one stated aim “to turn citizens into customers”.
Ms Murphy people believed serious numbers of people would turn out to protest on December 10th.
The Taoiseach said Mr Kelly would also deal with the public ownership of Irish Water in his announcement this afternoon. He said the people’s contributions will “go strictly for investment in Irish Water requirements and not to any sideline issues”.
