With record numbers sleeping rough our priorities are skewed again by water charges

WHAT matter that a record number of people are sleeping rough as temperatures dip below zero — once we’re not doomed to pay water charges, writes Michael Clifford

Who cares that large chunks of housing stock are being treated like a lotto win by vulture funds — as long as our taps are allowed to run free?

The focus of the body politic in the week gone by was on the publication of the report of the expert commission on domestic water services. Precious little of the debate that ensued concerned the most pressing aspect of the water infrastructure, which is the state of waste water treatment in the country. Rivers may turn brown, beaches wash up untreated excrement, but as long as shapes can be thrown on the issue of charges, none of it really matters.