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.