We used to blame the British for all woes — now it’s the EU’s turn

As we were once told that something had to be done because the British decided it, now we are being told it’s because the EU has decided it.

Businesses will pass on water charges to customers, and schools will pass them on to parents or taxpayers

THE beauty of independence was that we became responsible for our own affairs in 1922, yet throughout much of the rest of the 20th century we continued to blame the British anyway.

Now some members of Government are using the EU as a new scapegoat. Dublin City Council was reportedly planning to provide wireless access (wifi) to the internet for everyone in Dublin free of charge. It would cost the council €27 million to set up the process, but some people are suggesting this was supposedly blocked because of EU competition laws.

In other words, because some entrepreneurs wish to make a financial killing for themselves, local government should not intervene by providing a service to everyone. On my last visit to Dublin I had to send off a column from the hotel, so I had to purchase a minimum of a 12-hour connection for €10. I only wanted it for two minutes.

The last time I was at Shannon airport, they had free wireless access, but at the same time you had to pay for access at Dublin airport. Was Shannon violating EU law? Do they violate EU law by providing comfortable seats in a waiting area rather than essentially compelling people to spend some money to sit down in one of the airport restaurants?

In the era of the Celtic Tiger, providing wireless access to the internet is akin to providing street lighting for earlier generations. Providing free wifi would promote an Ireland of the Welcomes by limiting some of the opportunities for gougers to rip off tourists.

What we are witnessing is a latter-day manifestation of the Famine mentality.

For centuries we blamed the British for everything, including the Great Famine. Other crops grew normally, and there were probably much more fish in our rivers and off the coast. This island continued to export food even though tens of thousands of people died of starvation, malnutrition and rampant disease.

The people who were exporting the food were mostly Irish, but the London-based government was reluctant to interfere for fear of undermining the economy.

One of the great fruits of independence was staying out of the Second World War. Yet in the 1950s, when the rest of the world was booming, we developed into a backwater. The decade is now remembered for rampant emigration and for the gutless politicians who allowed narrow-minded clerics to become the virtual government of this country. We were deluded into thinking that all our problems would disappear if only the British would get out of Northern Ireland. When I was young, people often talked about a Munster hurling final that was played in Killarney on a very hot day.

Some enterprising people sold glasses of water on the way to the stadium. The people of Killarney were castigated for years afterwards and the town became synonymous with rampant commercialism.

People used to say they visited “Ireland and Killarney” as if the latter was so different it had to be mentioned separately.

While in Dublin before Christmas I paid €6 for two bottles of Ballygowen at a hotel near Leinster House. If I told anyone as a youngster that I would one day pay more than a fiver for two glasses of water, they would have said that I belonged in Killarney — not the town but the mental hospital.

Of course, in going into a hotel for water you are taking up space and they have to pay for that space, which has become very expensive.

Those people who charged for the water in Killarney in the early 1950s could now claim they were way ahead of their time, even thought they were lambasted for their commercialism.

Some airports, hotels and restaurants provide free wireless access as a service in the US. Cities like Riverside, California; Corpus Christi, Texas; Dayton, Ohio; and Spokane, Washington, provide free wifi. We spent a fortune building up a tourist infrastructure, but we have been killing it with the rip-off mentality, which is akin to the same mentality that allowed the Great Famine to develop.

We blamed the blight and the British.

Both contributed, but the real killer was blind, selfish commercialism. Most people died of disease and that ultimately hit all classes. Blaming the British was a self-delusion. But now we are allowing a new delusion to be generated.

As we were once told that something had to be done because the British decided it, now we are being told that things have to be so because the EU has decided it.

Businesses will pass on water charges to customers and schools will pass them on to parents or taxpayers. The same people will be hit again when water charges are introduced on homes.

And even more money will be wasted on what amounts to collecting an unnecessary tax. Taxpayers are already paying for the infrastructure to deliver water to homes without being screwed to pay for the water, too, as if it had to be mined. Those responsible for this would tax air, if they could. For what — so that government can flitter away money on daft or extravagant projects such as Bertie Ahern’s make-up or the Government-sponsored professionalisation of Gaelic games? Maybe water is a precious commodity in other parts of the world, but we have a surfeit here. Just ask the people of Mallow right now.

We are being told we must charge for water because the EU is insisting. European Affairs Minister Dick Roche refuted this before Christmas. “We have to make the decision ourselves,” he said. “It’s nothing to do with Brussels.”

HIS comments flatly contradicted the Taoiseach, the Minister for Education, and other members of Government who contend that EU rules preclude them from exempting schools from water charges.

The EU water framework directive requires that rivers, lakes and coastal water that are environmentally damaged or under threat should be protected and restored as part of achieving the “sustainable development that is vital for the long-term health, wellbeing and prosperity of everyone”.

There is no mention of schools paying for water.

Last Sunday the Taoiseach talked about his admiration for Pádraig Pearse. I wonder what Pearse would have said if he were told that his dream would come true, but we would then swap British control for EU control?

Or how would Pearse have responded to putting water charges on schools? Bertie needs more make-up!

Of course, this is not really about handing over control to Europe. It is a measure of just how out of touch our Government has become with the people that it would even suggest that the EU is supposedly compelling them to introduce water charges on schools, or blocking Dublin Corporation from providing wifi access for all the people of Dublin.

Blaming the EU could have serious consequences. The Taoiseach said the forthcoming referendum on the Reform Treaty is “a crucial issue” for this country and that it is of fundamental importance, yet the snide manner in which his Government has sought to shirk its own responsibility by blaming Europe is a virtual invitation for people to use the forthcoming referendum to flush the Reform Treaty with the water charges.