We Won't Pay Campaign reply to Mitchell McLaughlin

antrim | worker & community struggles and protests | other press Wednesday April 04, 2007 13:54 by non-payer - We Won't Pay Campaign

Gary Mulcahy, Secretary of the We Won't Pay Campain replies to Mitchel McLaughlin.

Questions remain unanswered

"In Mitchel McLaughlin's reply he claims that Sinn Fein's position is clear. In fact what he says is completely unclear. There is no firm commitment in his reply to abolish water charges completely.

"The simple question remains, will the new Sinn Fein minister issue any form of water bills or not? All we ask is a clear commitment that the entire water charges agenda will be fully scrapped.

"Until we get that commitment we can only go by Mitchell McLaughlin's comment :“If we separate out the legacy cost and we set in front of people the legitimate cost of running a clean and healthy water supply to people’s houses, people are fair minded, they will pay that.” In anybody's language this means there will be bills delivered."

QUOTES OF INTERVIEW:

According to Jamie Delargey of UTV Live (2nd April 2007), Sinn Fein say “consumers won’t mind paying the day-to-day running costs for water”.

Mitchell McLaughlin UTV Live 2nd April 2007

“If we separate out the legacy cost and we set in front of people the legitimate cost of running a clean and healthy water supply to people’s houses, people are fair minded, they will pay that.”

Ian Paisley Jnr. UTV Live 2nd April 2007

“We’re currently negotiating a financial package with the Chancellor of the Exchequer. I’ve been intimately involved in those negotiations and our intention is to get sufficient resources to invest in capital works programmes so as the general public do not have to pay for a lack of investment over the last 30 years.”