Ireland’s European Commissioner Phil Hogan
“It was unbelievably arrogant or naïve of the Government to expect the EU Commission to see the so called water conservation grant as anything other than an exchequer transfer.
Calling it a water conservation grant was only likely to deepen the bureaucrats’ suspicions.
If the government’s plans fail the market corporation in test in April, I believe that the Government will then move to get rid of the water conservation grant altogether while pressing ahead with full water charges.
“The whole issue of Water Charges will not go away. The government can still abandon the concept of charging people for the water they drink and instead look at alternative models.
I suspect the EU Commission’s concerns go even deeper than the grant. The message to Brussels should be that the Irish people have rejected water charges and that no tweaking of an accounting trick can change that.”
Sinn Fein TD Pearse Doherty speaking to RTÉ R1’s Morning Ireland earlier responding to reports in the Irish Independent of a confidential report expressing the European Commission’s concerns about irish Water’s finances.
Confidential report reveals European concerns about Irish Water (BreakingNews)
(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
the bigger problem is that the EU is institutionally right wing and Ireland is locked in.
+ 1. And the Irish Labour Party is effectively a right-wing christian democrat party now, so they won’t protect the people’s interests.
The bigger problem is that there is a movement of people out there who think conserving water is immoral and paying for what you use is wrong. I’m sick of paying an unspecified amount of money through my taxes to support wasters. I want to have a meter showing exactly how much I am using so that I pay for my water usage and nobody else’s. All of the protesting has cost taxpayers millions and millions of euro.
lol
Comic genius.
Get up the yard
There is a point there but the problem is these wasters will probably end up getting it for free anyway
haha you are so right but what a complete c*nt you are
This.
LoL
minions and minions?
Paolo. You hit the nail on the head!
The Irish public have been completely conned with the revised water charges. The “conservation” grant of €100 doesn’t even offset the removal of the 30,000 litres free allowance which is now going to cost each household €111 and the removal of the tax free allowance will also cost PAYE workers. The €100 grant and the capping of charges is a political gimmick which can be taken away at a whim whenever our bosses in Europe decide.
the only people being conned are those few who have signed up to Irish Water, or those who are forced to sign up as per latest developments in Galway – €3700 to get hooked up to the mains. http://connachttribune.ie/irish-water-to-add-e4000-to-new-home-builds-444/
I think Irish Water is heading for the rocks. There’s no great campaign to get people signed up by the end of this month. 60% of households have returned their packs, but IW won’t tell you how many householders have the surname “No Contract, No Consent”, “Mouse” or “Duck” and given IW’s form with numbers, you’d have to treat the 60% with a grain of salt.
The government doesn’t want this issue to dominate the forthcoming elections, and in March 2016, people will be receiving penalty demands. That’s just not going to happen.
What will it cost the government to abandon IW as a charging entity? Very little, it will need find €100m odd to make up the charge, it’s peanuts, and as this government tell us, political uncertainty will undermine economic recovery, and shure why would they want to undermine that for the sake of €100m?
Says the Shinner who takes the people of this country as gullible gormless muppets naively soaking up all their Shinner bullsh*t.
Fupp of Pearse, have you not got some other truth behind SF to go around denying.
ah yes, FF/FG/Lab are the bastions of truth in a country ruled by dissident terrorists
What would you call the gang that’s in government at the moment???
GANGSTERS
Water charges are an internationally driven concept being pushed by parasitic billionaires who want to make money by holding basic human needs to ransom. Same with health services, core food ingredients and agricultural seeds.
They control banks and governments by loaning them money with strings attached.
It’s nothing to do with conservation or local policy.
Your democratic vote is just a useless notion to make you feel you have power.
You don’t.
Ah heya, Zuppy.
You may well indeed be right Mr T, you may well indeed be right!
So if you were foolish enough to sign up for the conservation grant, expect to never get approval for it in September. It’s simple don’t pay, ignore your bills and letters and this whole farce of Irish gravy will fail.
And all out Jan the 31st.
Every single person i know living in nice neighborhoods are not paying & have no intention too. They no its pure corruption.