Why there should be no charge for ‘liquid sunshine’

THE recent report of the Commission on Taxation recommends that the Government introduces domestic water charges as a way of generating revenue for local authorities.

I urge the Government not to take up that recommendation for the very reasons that its own negotiators gave the European Commission for not taxing householders for water.

In formulating water legislation, now part of the water framework directive, the commission proposed that all water should be paid for. Water pollution was an especially serious problem in the large industrialised and urbanised member states that required complex, expensive water recovery and treatment processes.

Severe water shortages that affect some of the member states constantly, and some seasonally, were also an urgent consideration for the commission in formulating legislation that would incentivise restricted water use.

In 2000, our negotiators made the case to the commission that Ireland was the wettest country in the EU and that we had the lowest population to use that water. Though we had water pollution problems, they had specific causes that were already being addressed in waste, nitrates and other environmental legislation. They argued that better water usage in households could be tackled in other more positive ways.

Maybe it was the commonsense of the argument, the persuasive talents of an Irish negotiator or that the Nice Treaty was being put to the Irish people in less than a year and they wanted to keep voters sweet, but Ireland alone secured an exemption from household water charges.

When I was lobbying commission officials seven years later on the issue of water charging of schools and farms and questioned them about this domestic exemption, they seemed unclear about how the “Irish derogation” came about.

Rather than throw away such a sensible and valuable derogation, we should take a serious look at the reality of charging households for water.

How much money will it really raise if the local authority must install, maintain and read meters on every dwelling? The water framework directive allows for the charging of all water even if it comes from a private source

If the local authority is going to charge for all water, would it not also have to take over the considerable ongoing expense of water extraction, piping and pumping from private wells, springs or group schemes.

Whether eventually there will be money to be made from charging for domestic water is uncertain. What is certain is that attempting to charge will require an enormous initial outlay at a time when there is no extra money to spend. Do councils cancel desperately needed social housing projects, or work on making dangerous minor roads safer, to invest in water charging?

Once we decide to charge households for water in Ireland there is no turning back because we lose our derogation forever. If we then find that charging costs more than it brings in, or the initial investment is too much to take on right now, it will be too late because EU law will force us to charge from the moment the Government decides to do so.

The Irish householder is already paying dearly for our wet climate in extra building costs, expensive heating and drying, the constant struggle against damp, maintenance of overburdened roofs, gutters and drains. Adding up the extra cost of our “liquid sunshine” will show that for the householder rain is not free and the least we can do to offset the costs is to refrain from charging for water in the home.

Domestic water charging would disproportionately affect family budgets. Where there is a greater number of non-earning water users – children and people who are sick, elderly or disabled – is a water charge yet another expense we can afford to add?

Kathy Sinnott

Chair

Hope Project

Ballinabearna

Ballinhassig

Co Cork