Date for water charges may be decided next week

The exact timing of the imposition of water charges could be decided after meetings next week, Environment Minister Phil Hogan said yesterday.

Speaking in University College Cork yesterday, Mr Hogan, a UCC graduate, said the decision as to when the charges would be implemented would be set by Finance Minister Michael Noonan and Public Expenditure Minister Brendan Howlin.

It follows earlier confusion when Mr Hogan appeared to suggest the water metering system would be launched next January, only for Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore to quash talk of that start date.

“Eamon Gilmore and I said the same thing in a different way,” said Mr Hogan.

“In the troika programme at the moment, it is January 2014 but the precise time of it will be a matter for those discussions which are happening next week.”

He said the “silent majority” were already complying with “unpopular” decisions like septic tank charges and the household charge.

Mr Hogan came to his alma mater yesterday to raise a green flag marking UCC’s green status — but that plan was dropped due to the presence of 40 protesters outside.

The event was to mark the university’s retention of its green flag status, three years after it became the first university in the world to achieve the environmental distinction.

However, following a presentation indoors, Prof John O’Halloran, that head of the School of Biological, Earth and Environmental Sciences, said it was “not safe” to go outside.

So a student group took the flag outside while the minister responded to queries from reporters.

The protesters, many brandishing Campaign Against Household and Water Taxes (CAWHT) flags, had been chanting “Enda out” and “axe the tax” in the run-up to the event.

Referencing the appearance of a former TD in court yesterday on fraud and theft charges he said: “I am, as minister for the environment, and Brendan Howlin, as minister for public expenditure and reform, are carrying out a lot of political reform, some of which is meeting with protests like we have today, and I believe that the body politic will be stronger in three years time than we have inherited in 2011.”

He said the Government would be interacting with the unions in the next few weeks regarding the rejection of Croke Park II, while on possible electoral boundary changes in Cork, he said they were unlikely to be introduced before local and European elections next year.