Forming a government: Irish Water fiasco pales to sham talks

In a world where many of the foreign economies we depend on are, at best, tip-toeing towards growth, where we are married to a stuttering euro, where Germany blocks ECB plans for economic stimulus, and where our biggest trading partner may quit the EU and pull up the drawbridge, causing us all sorts of problems, in a world where our ever more expensive health service has become a living monument to dysfunction, politicians have chosen our decrepit, underfunded, porous water service as their line-in-the-sand issue.
Fianna Fáil insist they could not support an administration that won’t make concessions on a barely viable water utility. That they have convinced the electorate that this position is based on principle rather than the crass populism that might restore their party’s fortunes is a reminder of why they were the dominant force in Irish politics for so long. It is hard to believe, though, that they have convinced themselves of the integrity of that position but they have made it their Alamo. Leopard, spots etc. It is brainwashing on a par with the suggestion that the imposition of water charges is anti-democratic. Fine Gael seem prepared to join in this long- fingering but they know there is only one way to fix our leaking, polluting infrastructure and that it will cost hundreds of millions each year for many years. But yet they concede, swapping principle for a chance of power.