No to Water Tax! No to Water Meters! Keep Water Public!

by Higgins voter Thu May 26, 2011 20:50

Water is not an infinite resource. It needs to be conserved - and people need to change their water using habits in order to conserve supplies. The ONLY way that ordinary people change environmentally unfriendly use of resources is when it hits them in the pocket. Examples? Taxes on plastic bags. Cash returns on glass bottles (works well in Canada, nearly 100% of glass bottles are recycled).

People are entitled to water but they shouldnt be allowed to use it without reasonable limits, e.g. the practice last winter of leaving the taps on all the time so pipes wouldnt freeze up - meant that the entire water stock was depleted for everyone.

Water meters make sense - they are egalitarian, everyone needs to ensure that they do simple things like only turning on the tap when you need it to clean your toothbrush, rather than leaving it on the whole time; this applies to rich as well as poor people.

The ULA shouldnt be fighting this.

by Marc S Thu May 26, 2011 22:16

1. First a point of fact: What exactly was the evidence that significant numbers of people wasted water during the freeze-up by running their taps to avoid freezing? Correct me if I am wrong but I never saw a single scientific survey or even a credible anecdotal account that this really happened. All I saw was council officials making allegations which may be correct or incorrect, but for which no evidence was ever advanced. THese are officials who have been working hard to try create a consensus that water charges are inevitable.

2. Yes, water costs a lot of money to purify and deliver to your tap. Llike education, healthcare and other public services that require large amounts of capital to develop, tap water does not lend itself well to payment at point of delivery. That's why it has always been funded from taxation. It was also recognised by even the Victorian rich that it was not good for them to live in a society with large slums seething with cholera and other dirty-water diseases, so they paid their share. It's sad to see some people advancing arguments in the 21st century that were lost in the 18th.

It is extraordinary that someone calling themselved 'Higgins Voter' and who seems to think highly enough of the ULA to offer them advice, takes to the Net to defend water charges - can you not see that they are the prelude to divestment and privatisation? Privatisation of these kinds of services is almost always followed by cherry-picking of the most profitable aspects of the business and neglect of service to the poor. Competition, which in the imaginary world of the orthodox economist it supposed to ensure good service at a reasonable price, can't happen as it would not be efficient to have two competing schools, hospitals or water pipe networks side by side. Once charging is brought in, the poor pay proportionately far more of their income than the rich for something that is not optional, but vital for the health and welfare of them and their children. And what about someone who has a job where they need to bathe every time they come home? Or someone who has a medical condition and has to take baths daily... Labelling water charges as egalitarian is a bit like offering the Nobel Peace Prize to, umm, Henry Kissinger. (Oh, wait...)

by Conor M Mon May 30, 2011 12:53

Looks like the ULA is taking the lead here. I thought there was going to be a broad campaign including all different groups opposing water charges.

Im constantly hearing people saying 'United left divided'. I see it now, as I should have seen before.

by pbp supporter - - Mon May 30, 2011 13:44

Well done to the ULA taking the lead here. Nothing stopping anyone else doing something on it. Some people are never happy and are looking for a row, when non exists because its an excuse to do nothing!

by pat c Mon May 30, 2011 13:51

Indeed, someone has to take a lead but it might have been better if the ULA had approached the other groups and independents who have been involved in fighting service charges in the past. A meeting called by a broad platform would have more credibility and there would be a greater possibility of a united campaign.

Inviting people along to a meeting where you have set the agenda is perhaps not the best path to unity.

by Michael O'Brien - Socialist Party/ULA Mon May 30, 2011 17:22

To clarify for Pat this a protest taking place outside a conference organised jointly by private commercial interests and the Dept of Environment and Local Government about water metering.

It was called by the ULA TDs as an immediate response when a delegation of water workers (members of SIPTU) met them and brought it to their attention.

So tomorrow is a one off protest initiated by ULA but the platform is open to all the forces committed to fighting this tax and the broader No Water Tax campaign needs to be reactivated to prepare for the campaign of non payment in 2012

by Andrew Tue May 31, 2011 12:09

There is a report and photos from this mornings protest at http://www.wsm.ie/c/anti-water-tax-campaign-protest-cro...-park

by opus diablos - the regressive hypocrite party Tue May 31, 2011 12:39

Surely whats needed is that the ordinary citizen and family has adequate free water, but that excessive use(washing cars every sceond day, watering flowers rather than veg during drought, etc.) is levied with a charge.

Industry and business must be charged above a certain basic consumption, to ensure automatic tap shut-off mechanisms are installed etrc, and that wastage generally is discouraged and penalised.

Commercial car-washes, laundries, bottling operations etc. must pay, its a matter of ensuring ordinary consumers dont carry the can for the wasters. i.e. tax the corporate consumer(he's getting off light enough as it is)of major resources(all resources) not the citizen.

Simple black/white, either/or, solutions are just that, too simplistic for the actual complexity of reality.

by frank lee Tue May 31, 2011 14:20

pipes on the modern estate where I live froze in 50% of the house, reason:-

our mains water pipes have been fitted with access for metering, instead of burying the pipes 3 feet underground they are 2 inches. held within a metal casting for easy access for a meter. who devised this against all best practice, why government advisers. so its not really a surprise that households let there taps flow overnight. Though i believe the main losses came when the water melted then poured out of the busted pipes. When the meters freeze who will pay for the bad engineering, guess who!

by D_D - PBPA-ULA Tue May 31, 2011 18:10

Water falls
Like the air we breath
It's for all
Not for anyone's greed

Purified through the public purse
By our labour piped in trench
The poisoning privatisers' curse
With holy hate we'll drench

by MIchael Moorcock Tue May 31, 2011 19:34

The above may rhyme
But for poetry its a crime

You have not created Culture
It is the work of a vulture

Stick to the daytime job
your verses make me sob

At revolution you are fine
But your ode makes us whine

by Marc S Wed Jun 01, 2011 23:47

Michael Moorcock
You should put a sock
In your rhyming critique
Cos your own rhyme is weak

D_D's ditty
May not be so pretty
But it comes from the heart
Where all good things start

Her dream-like images
And impressionistic linkages
Will beat the privatising cute-hoors' winkages
And then we can all go for sandwiches.