This morning.
3Stella writes:
“One guard holding back the tide of anti water protesters, Clanbrassil st [Dublin], now!”
Meanwhile
“I warned the department at a high level meeting that it was going to be an unmitigated disaster if there was not enough engagement with the public and that has proven to be the case,” he said.
The former minister [Fine Gael TD Fergus O’Dowd] refused to apportion individual blame for the shortcomings he identified.
“This is not about personalities,” he told the Irish Independent. “It is about bringing about real change in Irish Water. This organisation has to change its ways right now and listen to the people.”
Mr O’Dowd said people felt “angry and intimidated” after receiving their sign up packs in the post, requesting copies of PPS numbers.
He said it was clear there was “an intense dislike of the whole process”.
Minister Who Set Up irish Water Brands It A Disaster (Independent.ie)
Its a few scangers who wont be paying them anyways
Well aren’t you lovely
“anyways”
Skanger.
It should read “in anyways”, if you are going to be prejudiced D do it right.
Well I slagging his prejudice you see.
Wasn’t meant for you love! Sorry bout that
Careful now !
It’s neaerly all apartments there anyway so they’d likely be getting an estimate regardless
Nope. It’s mainly houses.
i’d actually comply if they werent demanding PPS numbers
They’re not “demanding” PPS numbers… you don’t have to give them. But then you default to the higher rates with no allowances…. your call. It’s a clumsy system I admit but lets not go OTT on describing it.
Oh no not OTT is discussing whether rationing water on the basis of wealth is an idealogical path we want to thread in the name of conservation. We wouldn’t want to have a conversation with opposing views present, lets just ask the poorest in our great society to shoulder a bit more of Irelands debt burden, if they start getting notions their message will be rough around the edges and offend the middle class who find such expression illegitimate. No need for an OTT conversation here.
“rationing water on the basis of wealth ” straight out of the SWP handbook….. If you take that view then food, cars, houses, clothes, and holidays are all “rationed” on the same basis. I’ll include cigarettes, Dutch gold and sky sports least you think I’m being elitist.
If your argument is that we shouldn’t have to pay for anything then let’s hear it in detail… because what you’re saying makes no sense. It’s OTT in fact.
Please don’t compare me to the SWP there is nothing more annoying than a shrill ativist who has never been poor. I agree with water charges in general just to put that ‘everything should be free’ charge to bed. However the system in place is unfair and what are people being asked to pay for? an outdated water supply system which uniquely for a European capital runs at close to 100% capacity, on a good day. Irish Water as a means to produce revenue works, it will be privatised to encourage competition and like England instead of investing in one dependable system we’ll have 15 brightly coloured ones.
In general people are not opposed to a charge to upgrade our system they do have a problem with being seen as a revenue stream and not as citizens. I don’t live in Coolock anymore but my family and friends are still there, families have sacrificed a lot. Not just passing on Sky Sports and fags but peoples lives have changed direction. We worked hard to move from social housing to a private estate and most families would have come from the same situation. In our case my da had two full-time jobs my mother had one and four children. Now we are seeing people leaving education due to funding cuts (two members of my family had to drop out after a lot of financial manoevering and frustration in finding ways to stay) neighbours are leaving the country again, suicide rates are through the roof, 20% of children are going to school hungry.
It is a more principled stand than ‘we don’t want to pay’ we see people suffering, hard working people who simply can’t pay this charge. It isn’t morally ambiguous, we need to find a fairer way.
I forgot to add evictions to that list, knowing how hard people worked to move to private housing and now watching as they lose their homes of couse there is anger a lot of anger. this Irish Water protest has all the signs of growing. There is a communications structure in place, people are starting to see the pay off in getting out and organising and being heard.
But that is the role of the working class, the middle class will be more cautious and resist change, the police will get more heavy handed these are roles we are all conditioned to play our parts.
Fergus might remember it was the political decision he and his chums made to force Irish Water to give all sorts of allowances that led to the PPS number being required. The media then decided to make a big issue of it despite plenty of private firms such as banks (required by law to open an account), GP’s, Dentists etc. Its simply a set of characters that distinguishes between john smith from john smith for the purposes of receiving state benefits, a water allowance being one of them. Blaming IW for implementing a government decision is unfair.
spot on, this comment needs to be repeated every time someone is giving out about pps numbers
Great, more unemployed people out protesting about something which should never be free and which they won’t end up paying for our of their own pockets anyway.
Some of the people in this country need a reality check!
I’d rather they spent their energy trying to get a job and contributing to society instead of being out for the sake of it.
Do you wear a suit to bed young Fine Gaeler, just in case you need to be corporate at a moment’s notice?
Lols I don’t even own a suit.
Trix
Your argument is mute. You obviously accept the party line. Will you say in 20 years we should have a carbon tax on people for say exhaling. Its people like you that disgust me. Those who accept all that is imposed upon them and assumes those in power have all the answers. You’ve never fought for any just cause.
Water in this country should be free. The rainfall and consumption clearly allow for it. We dont live in arizona or new mexico where it is scarce. this is not about changing peoples usage of water and habits. Its about redistribution of the 1.5 billion that is currently allocated to water from other forms of taxation out to other programmes of government.
If the government were serious about saving money they would claw back 40 billion (more than one anglo) from apple from its activities here due to effective rather than normative taxation rates.
So go back up to your pulpit and look down on those that actively give a shit. I just hope one day you are not in a breadline position where you have to decide which bill to pay
Idiot !
Mickey, bit of an over reach there calling me an idiot when you’re the person who believes our water should be free because of how much rainfall there is.
Have you ever heard of water treatment? Waste water management? Water Supply systems? etc etc, all of these cost an awful lot of money. And by the tone of your post I’m going to assume it’s not money that you are used to paying for services, there’s a stink of entitlement off it like most of the other people fighting this perfectly fair cost.
I don’t accept any party line, I’ve never voted for Fine Gael in my life.
I don’t accept everything that is imposed on me either, I simply understand the need for water rates. It’s one of the most expensive resources to provide to a society. And to clarify, it’s people like you who make me sick, people who feel they should pay for nothing but get everything. Go get a job, go pay your taxes, contribute to the society you live in instead of spending your days protesting things you clearly don’t fully understand.
You also clearly don’t understand the Apple situation very well…..stop just reading the headlines and actually read the articles I’d suggest.
Thanks for once again proving the level of intelligence attached to this anti water rates element.
Do you have a completely black and white view of society? People are either in the squeezed middle or socially excluded? There is a spectrum within society plenty of people who work hard oppose these charges.The ones who work hardest trying to cover bills, feed their children and pay the bills are particularly opposed. We’re choosing to view society as citizens rather than consumers the fact that most in favour of water charges jump straight to ‘You get everything or free’ suggests that its a radical stance. It’s a bit reductive love.
Love?….strange.
I fit bang smack in the middle of that category you speak of with hard working people struggling to pay everything and still have some money to show at the end of the month.
The main difference is that I also accept that certain services and resources cost money and this money needs to be paid by the users.
Also, we could just continue to bury our heads in the sand and not raise the money to fix the current system and continue to waste money and damage our environment through poor resource management.
Most hard working people I know aren’t lucky enough to have the time to be out blocking workers on a Tuesday morning or ringing Joe Duffy, they are busy actually working and actually contributing to the society they live in.
My main issue is that people most people I’ve come across who oppose these rates don’t actually know why they oppose them, they just oppose what they’re told to, pretty ironic.
OffMooof
Don’t bother feeding the troll. The narrative and lack of any empirical data to back up the bullshit is a key indicator.
Save the debating for a worthwhile individual
@ Trix – When well educated, middle class people are finding it extremely difficult to get jobs, do you have any idea what people from disadvantaged backgrounds are up against?
Do you want them to ‘get a job’ so they’ll be able to pay more tax, or so that they won’t have time to protest?
Read elsewhere but love it:
Change provider to Trocaire who claim to be able to provide clean water to a village for €2/month…..
Hah, classic.
Wow, just wow there are some amount of shills here today pretending to be middle of the road, In the face of what can only constitute as the single shadiest setup of an Qwango ever to exist in this country.
Even FAS fails in its shadyness in its setup.
MickeyBubbles, you probably shouldn’t talk too much about ’empirical data’ considering our rainfall is one of your reasons why we should get free water.
I’m not trolling, I’m just shocked at how incredibly stupid some people can be.
Like it’s got anything to do with water conservation. More money will be put into the setting up of Irish Water and metering than will be put into the infrastructure or any water harvesting programme in the same period. It’s just another part of the neo-liberal agenda foisted on us by the Troika and happily taken up by FG/Labour.
don’t blame the troika. Our politicians have been trying to pass this off for at least 30 years. The troika is just a convenient ‘it wasn’t us, honest.’ All they are doing is creating a giant private business to be sold off in a few years. And its not about conservation, its about supply. It costs practically no more to supply 10,000 litres to your home than 1,000 litres, yet you pay 10 times more. Sorry, but thats mad, But there is sod all we can do, Im not the sort to go out protesting and banging dustbin lids, but we have really been sold out. In 5 years a select class will pocket millions in bonuses, commissions and shares when this is sold. The same guys telling us now we can save money by not flushing our toilet…