A tax too far for many taxpayers - Water charges

Any hope the Government might have harboured that reductions in water charges would mollify the public at large has been surely dashed by the tens of thousands of people who took to the streets of Dublin yesterday.

Estimates of the numbers involved in the protest – the third in the past three months – vary wildly. The organisers, Right2Water, estimate that over 100,000 people attended the protest, while gardaí have put the figure at “30,000-plus”.

Buses carrying protesters came from Galway, Sligo, Cork, Waterford, Kerry, Tipperary, Clare, and Limerick yesterday morning, with thousands more travelling by train and car to Dublin. Whatever the final figure, there is little doubt that huge numbers came to voice their concern over continuing austerity and at the intransigence of the Coalition in pushing ahead with plans to charge domestic households for water.