Water as a political football: Time to grow up and pay up

WATER charges provoked one of the biggest protest movements of recent decades. 

The farce around the establishment of Irish Water was humiliating and Taoiseach Enda Kenny’s rejection of a referendum to secure the utility in public ownership rubbed salt into the wound. Those realities led to the annihilation of the Government, especially its Labour arm, last weekend.

Nevertheless, the charges are a legitimate widening of the tax base and a belated recognition our water infrastructure is on its last legs. This was recognised by the majority of people who paid, even reluctantly, the charge. Fianna Fáil proposes to abolish it but Fine Gael intends to impose it.

If Fianna Fáil, or any of the deluded everything-is-free dreamers like Paul Murphy or Richard Boyd Barret, wishes to abolish the charge they must explain fully how we can finance the billion-plus rebuilding of our water supply system to the point boil notices, like the one in East Cork, are consigned to history. Anything less would be a fraud.

Rather than indulge the fantasy “water is a right” it would be far more honest to say it is a necessity that comes at a huge cost. Reform is difficult, often involving hard, unpopular decisions but that does not make it any more avoidable.

The electorate rejected the fraudulent lower-taxes-but-better-services bunkum and it would be prudent to apply that lesson to water charges. Time to grow up and pay up.