Water charges: Cynicism from all sides as talks go on

AS THOSE hoary old dinosaurs of the Irish political theatre, Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil, continue to play at Civil War politics, while at the same time inching imperceptibly towards a facile minority government, the ship of State continues to drift aimlessly without a firm hand on the tiller. 

Meanwhile, there is a growing feeling that in the Trinity College negotiations, a long-drawn-out bid to cobble together some kind of deal, they are making it up as they go along.

Take, for instance, the belated intervention by Jobs Minister Richard Bruton and his pledge that Fine Gael would “defend to the hilt” people who have paid water charges, adding that there could be no question of people being left at a loss if a decision was made at some time in the future to abolish water charges. That goes diametrically against the official line up to now, which held that compliant people who paid Irish Water their bills on demand would not get as much as a red cent back. In other words, tough luck.