[Legal advice to the Oireachtas committee on funding of water] recommends that “levies” and not penalties be imposed on those who use excessive amounts.
The legal advice suggests that excessive usage should be set at 1.7 times the average household usage.
However, it later states that average usage would be decided on household size and also in line with average consumption, which is 133 litres per person, which Fianna Fáil has been proposing.
The advice proposes one further significant change: that it is mandatory for new builds to have meters, which was removed from the draft report last week.
Good times.
Legal advice goes against proposed water report changes (RTÉ)
Meanwhile…
Martin McMahon writes:
Anybody who is blessed with an older sibling has, at some time in their childhood, heard the “Mammy Says” half instruction half plea for you to do as your older sibling wants.
It’s a childhood thing, a tactic of coercion, a ‘you must do as I tell you because an authority figure agrees with me that you should’ power play.
Ultimately, it’s a sign of weakness, proof that the bossy older sibling has lost control.
This is exactly where Fine Gael are at in the Water Commission. Like overindulged toddlers in true blue babygrows, Fine Gael are throwing the rattle, the soother and the blankets out of the water charge pram.
They clutch to partisan EU opinions and legal advice as though they were handed down on Mount Sinai. They tell us that the Attorney General is infallible on water charges even as former Justice Minister Shatter calls for her head on foot of the Fennelly Commission report.
Fine Gael’s lack of humility, their ‘sore loser’ foot stamping, is an ignominious spectacle we are all forced to endure.
They lost the water charge argument at the last election, even the party faithful want it off the table as an issue. There are far more pressing problems piling up to be addressed.
Stop playing the spoiled brat Fine Gael, you lost, move on, LET IT GO.
Martin blogs at RamshornRepublic
Meanwhile…
In case you missed it.
Filmmaker Terry McMahon’s address to the Right2Water rally in Dublin last Saturday.
Stirring, in fairness.
