Right To Water writes:
“It’s very clear this government believes the water charges issue has gone away. We’re saying very firmly that it hasn’t and this will be the biggest issue when it comes to the next general election.
“On Saturday, 29th August we intend to show this government that water charges are still the number one item on the agenda and we have no doubt this will be our biggest event yet.”
“The Right2Water campaign believes recent events where the government gave the courts the ability to attach unpaid water bills to earnings in two years time have only added fuel to the fire.”
“People are outraged. The Government obviously recognise they have lost the debate.”
Right 2 Water announce major national demonstration on Saturday, August 29, 2015 (Right 2 Water)
Some people are outraged. The vast, vast majority of people are not. Many people see the violent low-lifes who attend these Right2Water marches as a serious threat to our democracy. Despite dwindling numbers at the marches, their tactics are becoming more and more violent.
The last thrashings of a desperate and dying rabid animal.
+1
Everyone I know hasn’t got a problem with paying.
Right to Water are just stuck in an echo-chamber.
I’d just like to take a moment to point out that there are almost 60 comments on this story alone. Say what you like about water charges, pay them or don’t, but you can’t deny that this is a divisive topic and people are far from done talking about it.
Paolo always in with the first (negative) comment on IW protestors. Must really rankle you that people haven’t just given in from the start.
likely he hasn’t been to one, watching “selected highlights” of it on tv instead. well, his delusion is his.
Obviously I haven’t been to one. I haven’t been to a 12th of July march either. Am I precluded from criticising the violence there too?
considering 99% of marches pass off peacefully and the media only focus on the interface areas, yes it’s probably better that you don’t show your opinions if you simply associate the 12th of July with violence.
Paolo,
you are absolutely right. The majority of decent people do not mind paying for water as they understand it is cannot be free. The anti water protesters are hijacked by thugs who have a totally different agenda and wish to have a state of anarchy. Unfortunately they also tend be be the given a lot of coverage on broadsheet.
Paolo, do you stand to gain financially or in kind from the introduction of water rates?
Because out of the many, many problems with it ranging from it being an obvious super quango aimed at squeezing more money from taxpayers for the cronies of FG with the many perks, payrises and bonuses involved to an extra tax on top of people who can not afford it. Issues you seem to be completely oblivious to.
Your constant reiteration of the one point you make since the beginning suggests so; in short, if you think you’re being ripped off, do nothing or else you’re a layabout scumbag.
What violence, you slack-jawed imbecile?
I think will find a huge amount of people are outraged. Never mind the people who goes to the the protests, there are thousands of people who are outraged. The bin charge is going up in price, by pretending it’s to encourage recycling, the water rate will do the same soon enough.
And will you all get lost when you lose the last election? Democracy eh
Explain please?
I paid €90 odd last year for my bins. Its a charge that can be controlled by a user by re-cycling a lot.
Similarly, if water meters were in, users would be more conscious of their water use to keep costs down.
What the anti-water charge protesters have done is to keep a lot of people on the higher capped charge, rather than the lower metered cost.
People pay more in USC charges every month than water charges but I don’t see this group organizing protests over that.
The charge coming in is going to be for weight rather than a flat per bin charge. It has nothing to do with recycling. A family/person who recycled as much as humanly possibly is still going to pay more, unless they can reduce the weight of their rubbish.
to ‘beat the meter’ the average water use would need to be dropped 70%.
After Gerry announced that his lot hadn’t gone away (you know) in 1995 – there was Canary Wharf, Manchester and then Omagh. Are we to read anything into that subtitle other than that this group are Sinn Fein at the core?
Mmm, maybe you’re reading a *tiny* bit too much into it…
Pretty sure that’s a tiny bit with a sprinkling of Semtex for good measure.
ludicrous. It is amazing how commentators go from saying Sinn Fein jumped on the bandwagon to saying that right2Water in its entirety is a Sinn Fein front.
Good point, but I think the Jews are behind it.
The fact that the water reduced have been reduced so much from what was originally proposed kind of proves that the water protest people have at least had some effect. You can complain about them all you like but their actions have made your bill lower.
I need a sub editor. Should read “water rates have been reduced”
But the changes have greatly diluted the pay per unit aspect of the charge.
Think I might have pointed this out about 68 times already here but anyway…
The cost of delivering water services didn’t change as a result of the government deciding to introduce the lower capped bill. The cost of delivering water services is funded by the government exchequer + domestic charges + non domestic charges. When the government introduced the lower cap more of this cost was funded by the exchequer.
Paul murphy et al didn’t protest away 200 million of the cost or something. That’s not how it works.
Or put another way, people who aren’t on the public water network are subsidising those who are to an even greater extent.
Yes. But it’s also made my bill meaningless when it comes to the volume of water I consume. They’ve (or rather the Govt reacting to them, to be fair) have made removed one of the most positive aspects of the whole thing – a € price on a litre of water.
oh youll get that in a year or two dont worry. and then you can play your little game of ‘how much water did i use’ .. and pay year on year inflated prices for it. youll be happy then. you just have to wait. in the meantime, if your money is burning a hole in ur pocket, go spend it on charity. might be nice to do before youre handing it over to DOB
The majority don’t want to pay Paolo and are just not that vocal.Proof is in the paying or non paying.The Gov would have let you know a long time ago if IW was all hunky dory.They haven’t,as the resistance is too strong.
How do you know the majority don’t want to pay, have you proof ?
I don’t think anybody outside Irish Water has proof of compliance rates, but it’s certainly worth pointing out that Paul Murphy asked in the Dail, he was told to ‘toddle down’ the corridor and ask elsewhere, and *they* wouldn’t tell because it’s ‘commercially sensitive information’.
Despite the fact that Irish Water isn’t actually in competition with anybody.
So no, I’ll wager Swoon *doesn’t* have proof, but not because he/she can’t be arsed looking for the info; those that have the info don’t want the plebs knowing.
You can read into that what you will. I see ‘there’s a lot of people not paying’.
Good even-handed response. Those for, against or apathetic about water-charges should really chill the fluich out.
In March 2015 1.23 million households had registered supposedly (that includes non-voluntary registerations,so even this number is artificially inflated).
As of one month ago 800,000 registered households had not paid their bill,despite the fact the bill is now due/overdue.That tells me something.
I’m not happy with the Structure of IW, I’m not happy with DO’B earning loads of cash from it but that has nothing to do with conserving water and ensuring that we pay by use.
The same should happen with car tax. Scrap motor tax and levy at the pumps so the people who drive 50K KMs a year pay more than those who drive 5K KMs a year.
I suggested that years ago and told it was “anti-rural-dweller”
You suggested what? The motor tax should be tied to mileage thing? Grand idea, but yeah, i can see the one-off house types getting the hump at that…
Fuel is already taxed to the limit, someone who drives 50k already pays a lot more tax than someone who does 5k.
http://www.revenue.ie/en/tax/excise/duties/excise-duty-rates.html
ah paulo, i wonder how you’ll feel when IW is sold.
why are you so eager to take on another tax/bill, Paulo? and the people you call low-lifes, are the same people who have already managed to get the bill reduced significantly, and also got the 100e thingy in. so if no one protested, the original sky high billing system would be in place, and if they didnt need that extra amount .. where was it going to go? i simply do not understand people who are for this new tax/bill .. there is no justifying it whatsoever, its a massive waste of money, they said they promised europe to bring it in, yet also said they are well ahead of repayments for the bailout .. so why go ahead and set up IW at all? ask yourself these questions, and dont be so quick to sling muck around the place, you end up covering yourself in sh!t when you do.
you’re wasting your time arguing with braindeads and zombies
Very Intelligent. The people who disagree with you are Braindead’s and Zombies . Speaks Volumes!
Considering they ask the exact same questions and ignore all the replies only to repeat the same questions again in another IW thread, then yeah, it is quite acceptable to assume they’re braindead or zombies.
@15 cent
Results of the previous local authority run system, which your taxes paid for.
50% leakage on the system.
The capital city having a capacity margin of 1-2% margin, it should be 10-15%.
Allowing cows to p&@s and s^%t into water sources in Roscommon leaving boil water notices for years. Btw irish water have addressed most of these notices in 18 months. On their website. Google it.
Investment decisions infused by the department and ministers…oh I’m a minister and I want to get re-elected so I want a wastewater treatment plant in my constituency. And now.
A horrendously over resourced sector.
That’s why we need a single water utility.
They’re “people”?
less than 50% have paid.
43% is the vast majority eh?
And I seriously doubt them figures too.
Time to raise the money by the methods that are so commonly stated as “we already pay” ! Let’s start by quintupling car tax !
Yay, cycling is cool ! :)
Or we better manage the money that is there.
But the money that is there would never pay for the upgrade….
What they should be focusing on is, IMO….
1. Enshrining IW in the constitution to keep it from privatisation (When TPP, TTIP and TiSA come in and a utility is privatised, there will be measures in TiSA to prevent re-nationalisation of any state utility, so we must protect it from our gombeen politicians)
2. Improved charging method and better / fairer management of those in the situation of “can’t pay”.
3. Caps on charge hikes, that remain indefinitely.
We already pay enough for are water i needs to be better managed, how come in a country where it rains the majority of the year we will be paying far more for water then countries that have far less? It is back to the auld under worked over payed public sector and now we have meters under the ground where you can’t check them, a badly set up quango that is taking all the tax we are paying for water and 63% of our car tax and they are complaining about no bonuses. If we put are minds to it and our shoulders to the wheel we could get it up to scratch in no time but the government we have wants to just throw money at it and hope it gets up to scratch.
I hear ya Drogg….. hence my 3 points… pick the right fight I say !
+1
I cannot see how it is progressive that someone using 10,000 litres of water every year pays more than someone using 100,000 litres of water.
Water conservation is in EVERYONE’s interest and conservation will not happen until people pay for every extra unit of water that they use.
water conservation should be incentivised. there should be tax breaks for harvesting and recycling water. those technologies should be subsidised to offset paying any water charge. the unit price of water should have only been introduced to the public when it was at its absolute lowest and when the infrastructure was properly fixed.
This is the wettest country in Europe with lakes and rivers all over the place, conservation of what is mostly untreated water is nothing more than a pointless exercise by people with poor personal hygiene.
@Scottser…. if the multi-nationals have their way, as they have done in influencing policy in the run up to privatisation of water in other countries…. all those “incentives” will be come charges.
You can be jailed in some states in the US for using a water butt without a licence which costs more money… totally mental sh*t !
No.1 priority on water should be to enshrine protection of it in the constitution.
I’ve paid double on my first bill to cover one of the people who won’t pay.
Was that before or after ringing Enda to express your amazement at the amount of spare cash you find yourself with all of a sudden?
Hehe. I am that guy! :-)
Must be hard to dial when you’re carrying 2 pints.
+1
…..of water.
I phoned Edna to tell him that I have already paid for water and will not be paying again.
I couldn’t get through to him.
I hope they never give up best of luck to them!
Anyone with half a brain knows its about more than just water.
Go on Shane so, what else is it about? Greece?
You mean their opposed in general to a democratically elected government ?
… Who lied their way into office and have been lying since.
+ 1
Makes protesting against the Blueshirt/Slave Labour Irish Water farce seem quite innocent in comparision.
Julien is that you?
more disruption caused by the Irish sense of entitlement
* the sense of injustice
WHERE? no location given, cmon guys, this is why turnouts are lower each time, theyre like secret protests, communicate all the info
it’ll come. it’s 6 weeks till the protest. It’ll be big so it’ll probably be a march through the city
The majority of the citizens of this country are embarrassingly stupid. We’ve only ourselves to blame.
Personally, i like to blame the people who say ‘we’ve only ourselves to blame’. Youse are generally the fuppers who voted in fg, won’t admit it and say ‘we’ve only ourselves to blame’ to cover your arses.
43% have paid, according to the communists at the irish times.
http://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/irish-water-collects-less-than-half-of-water-charges-owed-1.2285030
according to the usual suspects on this site, then, we are officially a nation of mindless zombies and arse-witted shinners.
Being asked to pay for the water through a third method is what is annoying people. Water has never been free.
then how do you explain ‘only our rivers run free..’