Anti-Water Charges

The government is spending €539 million on construction crews digging up concrete pavements all over the country to install water meters outside every home. At the same time the capital city is suffering crippling water shortages because there hasn’t been enough investment in production plants that could store sufficient treated water to cover periodic problems that inevitably arise such as the current difficulties from the variation in the available water’s chemical properties.

The cloak and dagger tactics employed by Irish Water to garner media publicity for the installation of its ‘first domestic water meter’ on Thursday of last week is an unconscious admission that the imposition of a new water tax will face huge opposition around the country.

The proposal by the government and Irish Water to install millions of water meters on homes is reactionary and profit-driven and has nothing to do with water conservation. Meters will facilitate the charging of individuals / families for the use of a basic necessity, currently paid for through central taxation.

A major campaign of opposition to the septic tank charge and the Household Tax has developed throughout rural Ireland with meetings of 400-500 in Donegal Town and Malin in Donegal and 500 plus in Newcastle West, County Limerick. In some cases opportunist establishment politicians are helping organise these meetings but Fianna Fail and Fine Gael are largely responsible for the failure to provide an adequate modern waste water infrastructure and they will be found out in the course of the genuine campaign which is being built.

"Minister Gormley's annoucement that the funding necessary to improve the water infrastructure will amount to €1.8 billion comes as no surprise given the legacy of neglect and the absence of water conservation as well as rain and grey water harvesting measures advocated by myself and others during the buidling boom.