Blimey.
POLL: The water charges have been revealed – do you intend on paying the bill? (Independent.ie)
Meanwhile…
The demonisation of the Irish Water protests.
G’wan the Isis.
Thanks Chad Dunne
Tag Archives: Irish Water
Luke ‘Ming Flanagan MEP
We don’t really expect much. An odd good summer and for the children not to have to take the boat when they’re reared. People are being told that things are getting better. People are not stupid. It’s getting worse.
I had to use a ‘local’ A&E the other night. We got a letter from our GP and headed for our destination with a screaming 7 week old child. Before we left we explained to the baby sitter that our other two daughters were not to use the tap water when brushing their teeth due to it being contaminated with cryptosporidium. We arrived at the hospital at around 7pm to be met by very helpful staff. We got in line. Baby still screaming. After an hour we got to see a very helpful nurse and were then sent back into a waiting room. After another two hours we were brought into an area to see a doctor. Baby still screaming. It was wall to wall with people on trollies. Some had been there for two days.
So what eh! Sure this is normal. After all things are improving! The war zone hospital scene in front my two eyes is this governments idea of improvement. Even Terry “twist it” Prone couldn’t find a collection of words to make this place look acceptable. The people on the trollies looked both sick and sickened. When you are sick you want at least to be buffered from stress. All I could see and feel was stress. Doctors and nurses trying to manoeuvre around a maze of trollies packed into corridors. Howya Ming said one man. “Ashamed” I said. We didn’t need to elaborate. Another man approached me and said “my wife tried kill herself last night with tablets”. The first line of treatment for this couple in unimaginable trauma was to be subjected to even more. Not even a space to themselves. I had felt more dignity the evening I was committed to Castlerea prison.
At this stage we needed to call home as our other two children would be worried. We called but failed as there was no signal. I went out to the middle of the car park until I finally got one but I still couldn’t ring as our baby sitters mobile was out of range. You see unless we leave the phones in one particular part of our house then they can’t be contacted. By the way we live in the middle of a town.
As it turned out our daughter was fine. With cryptosporidium in your water supply you never know. No matter how vigilant you are as a parent there’s always the worry that somehow the child’s bottle has been contaminated. The basic instinct of being able to run something under a tap to give it a clean is turned on it’s head.
We travelled home that night and both my wife and I spoke about the services in this country. You can’t drink the water. If your child does and gets sick then they must endure the torture of an overcrowded understaffed A&E. That’s if you can get there on time. You can’t ring home with news because the phones don’t work. When you try to get to and from the A&E you must put up with diabolical road conditions. When we got up the following morning we sent our children to a school with a pupil teacher ratio so high that crowd control is the best the teacher could possibly achieve. You basically have to teach them yourself when they come home. I pity the committed teachers who are expected to work in these conditions.
I hear the cry from government deputies that it is easy to be in opposition. No it’s not. It’s torture. It’s torture to watch everything falling around our ears while at same time our government tells us things are getting better. We are a warned about the sinister fringe. How much more sinister can it get than the way things are at the moment. While we struggle to provide basic services for our citizens we at the same time continue to bail out the European banking system. The interest alone on the odious bank debt is €1.6 billion per annum. So even when you pay to get services there are cut to the bone because the banker must be paid first.
The last few weeks have been inspirational. I have a hope that people are starting to expect more. Why shouldn’t you? Keep expecting and eventually you will get it. Keep it up. Bring on December 10th and bring this government to its knees. The alternative is to accept that barely surviving is the new thriving. Accept it now and you accept it forever.
(Laura Hutton/Photocall Ireland)
Syriasly?
at
Deputy Noel Coonan (Fine Gael) has jihad it up to here with the water protests.
“I come from the town of Templemore where we train every Garda in the country and the people down there and right across the country that I’ve met are horrified by what’s going on. And I think that it has been an awakening call for them because they are now concerned about elements of socialists, the so-called wealthy Socialist Party led by ‘The Murph’ and company and aided and abetted by extremists within our colleagues here from Sinn Féin. And I think that that needs to be nipped in the bud. The people have given that signal to us now: nip that in the bud, if not we are facing what is potentially an ISIS situation in the Middle East if those people are allowed get on to do what they’re doing. God help this country and people realise that.
We talk about Dublin and the people who are protesting here in Dublin the socialist led group, they don’t care about the country people. Country people all over down through the years had to pay for their water. Be it in group schemes, private wells, whatever and they want to act like parasites and live off of the country people. They’ve never acknowledged the role that the people down the country, small business people who operate from their own home who have to pay for their water. Businesses in the country who’ve had to pay for their water, the role that they have given in this country in bad times. They provided the money.”
They’ll be heading here soon.
Mark his words.
“I look forward to seeing already the implementation on the ground in my own town €5m has been spent on fixing leaking pipes. Pipes that had local authorities out every other day, fixing pipes along the road, such a waste of resources. Businesses, substantial businesses without water, whole housing estates without water and when you look into the ground which I did myself, the pipes had just simply melted….
And of course, water charges are not popular but the social benefits that we will reap now and into the future and already the plans for Roscommon are being implemented and people will in the very short-term I expect and we’ve been told will benefit from that. We will all reap it in the end. We are building something for the future here. We are addressing problems that under the previous system could not be addressed in the past. So let us not be swatted from our goal in returning this country to its productive very best by those who talk but don’t have a clue how to do it.”
Mayo TD Michelle Mulherin (Fine Gael) speaking in the Dáil this morning on Irish Water.
There you go now.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny on RTÉ’s Nine News tonight:
“And I think it should also be said Eileen, if I may say so that the average worker, a single worker on the minimum wage of 35,000 is going to get back €400 in the income tax returns starting in January.”
A Freudian slip from An Taoiseach.
Minimum wage is €8.65 per hour, 39 hours per week, 52 weeks per year = €17,542.
He should do more of these.
New charging structure of Irish Water to cost Exchequer €84m (RTÉ News)
Yikes!
Richard O’Rourke in Oklahoma writes:
The City of Oklahoma are introducing fines for “overwatering”, which are a lot higher than the total yearly cost of water in general for people at home. Add to that the fact that our water charges are already higher than in Ireland. Just a bit of perspective….
Water fight!
https://twitter.com/quiatimet/status/535133071692275712
https://twitter.com/quiatimet/status/535133590695473152
Anyone?
Clarity
at
RESULT: 71 per cent say NO, the new charges are not acceptable; 29 per cent say YES that they are. Just under 15,000 people voted #Liveline
— Liveline (@Liveline_RTE) November 19, 2014
Environment Minister Alan Kelly (above) delivering government Irish Water charge concessions in the Dáil while outside protests (top) continued this afternoon.
Mr Kelly said the €100 grant would be a cheque or transfer and customers would pay the charges upfront and receive the grant later. He admitted the first year would entail a time lag with the payment expected in September. The minister has said those who pledge to never pay water charges are in a different category to those who cannot pay and will be dealt with differently.
The capped charges will be in place until 1 January 2019 with legislation to allow for capped charges to continue after 2019. Households with either water or sewage only will pay 50% of the charges.
Those with meters who use less will get a once off rebate. The starting date for the charges is 1 January and bills will be charged from April next year. If a householder fails to register they will receive a default bill for €260 a year.
They will also not be entitled to the €100 Water Conservation Grant. People now have until 2 February to register. Households in group water schemes who register will also be eligible for the conservation grant.
PPS Numbers will not be required for registration and Irish Water will delete any numbers it has already received. There will be penalties for those who do not pay after a year or enter into a payment plan.
A single adult household will face a €30 penalty and €60 will apply to other households. Legislation will be introduced allowing landlords to deduct unpaid water charges from tenants’ deposits if necessary.
From top: Protests in Sligo on Monday night; outside the Mansion House on Saturday; and Tom Clonan
Dramatically-haired security analyst Tom Clonan went on RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Sean O’Rourke presented by Keelin Shanley this morning to discuss the Irish Water protests with an emphasis on the conduct of some of the protesters and the response by the Gardai.
Keelin Shanley: “You’re very welcome back to the programme. Now over the last few days anti-water protests have turned from peaceful demonstrations into much more tense, violent, even dangerous encounters between politicians, protestors and Gardai. I’m joined now by security analyst Tom Clonan. Tom, thank you for coming into us this morning. You are, you’ve a background in this area, you’ve done training in this area, you’ve been analysing hours of footage on YouTube as to what has been happening. What is your take on how it has been managed so far?”
Tom Clonan: “Well, just so the listeners know, as an army officer, as a captain in the defence forces prior to the ceasefires, we provided aid to the civil powers, of support to An Garda Siochana. So we did what we called riot control or public order training exactly the same as An Garda Siochana, because when we were in the same place, whether it be a prison riot, like say in Portlaoise for example, or whether we were supporting the guards in extradition cases, which were very, very nasty, very confrontational, we had exactly the same reference points as our colleagues in An Gardai with regard to the use of force, justification and minimum force. So I‘ve been watching the water protests with great interest and particularly after the event at the weekend, where I have to say Ministers of Cabinet have been using language which is very, very inappropriate, they have been using hyperbole to describe what have been relatively minor although unacceptable incidents but they need to be clear…”
Shanley: “What do you mean, Tom?”
Clonan: “I saw the footage, what had happened to Minister Burton and I saw the pictures of, you know, water balloons hitting her head, and, you know that’s absolutely unacceptable, Paul Murphy and others who are involved in those protests, they need to make sure they are properly stewarded and conducted responsibly, and in fairness to Minister Burton…”
Shanley: “Paul Murphy would say he didn’t…”
Clonan: “I understand that, but he was there with a megaphone. Please use it. But anyway, but the government response has been, you know, one of a confrontational, adversarial use of language, they constantly use the term ‘sinister elements’ to refer to protestors who are out on the streets. There were 150,000 out on the streets, we’ll probably have similar numbers, in fact we’ll probably have more than that on the 10th December, when I heard Brendan Howlin say this morning that we could be proud of Irish Water, they’re really missing the point there, you know, people are angry…”
Shanley: “But it remains to be seen, Tom, we haven’t heard the full proposals yet..”
Clonan: “They may try to arrange the deckchairs on the deck of the Titanic but people aren’t, the government are correct when they say people aren’t necessarily protesting against water, but the installation of water meters gives people the opportunity to protest…”
Shanley: “Let’s get back to the security. If you talk about a violent confrontation or if you find yourself in a position where there is, you know, public disorder or unrest or riot or whatever you going to call it, what are the basic requirements, the legal requirements, what are you going to do?”Continue reading →