Irish Water has sounded the deathknell of party politics

How naive we were to believe that this Coalition would right the wrongs of a party which must go down in Irish political history as the most reckless and damaging party to govern on this island.

How naive we were to believe that the traditional party of the peoplewould cut its roots and become an oxymoron, a right wing Labour Party. Despite some apparent gains while 'juggling the books' we might just as well have a Thatcherite government perfecting the art of kow-towing to and courting the power brokers while treating the people with dictatorial disdain.

It is abhorrent in the extreme to think that a small manageable country like ours would even contemplate selling our basic life-sustaining resource to global interests whose only reason for being is excessive profits for their shareholders.