Big Phil Hogan was put back in his box by thousands of us who protested, and won, over Water Charges. But we are still waiting for the promised referendum on putting into the Constitution, the commitment to keep our water out of private hands. And now we hear the public service workers involved in water services, 3,200 of them, who were transferred to Irish Water on the promise that they remain ‘public service’, are now faced with an attempt by Irish Water to go back on their word to them. This is not on. Neither is the delay on the referendum. I spoke about our #Right2Water issues, and the workers rights, today in the Dáil.

I got the chance to question IRISH WATER officials last week. There were two issues I wanted information on: the fate of workers in the ‘industry’, and their approach to fixing leaks. Most of us don’t trust Irish Water and the proposals on “excess use” are a backdoor to re-introducing water charges. Irish Water had asked for support in getting communities to accept a program to “address leaks” which strikes me as more about figuring “excess use” and little to do the real waste – LEAKS IN THE SYSTEM, NOT OUR HOMES.

RISH WATER WAS ALL ABOUT PRIVATISATION I was on Pat Kenny’s radio programme recently. The clip includes some comments on the expensive farce that is Irish Water; Why didn’t Fianna Fail fix the pipes with the excess €Billions that Brian Cowan bragged about? Just one of the points I made to Pat Kenny on his radio programme a couple of days ago. So why didn’t WE ever do anything about getting the water pipes fixed – why do we just ‘give out’ . I told Kenny who makes the decsions on Dublin City Council – the unelected city manager. So much for democracy! I also was challenged about how water is paid for, and by whom, and where and they wanted to know why so called ‘socialist’ parties in Europe support water charges.

Historic underfunding of water system by successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fail governments are the reasons for current infrastructure crisis. People Before Profit have outlined a number of measures that could be used to pay for water infrastructure upgrades and water services.

People Before Profit TD and spokesperson on water, Bríd Smith, has said that the blame for the crumbling nature of Ireland’s water infrastructure is down to historic underfunding by successive Fine Gael and Fianna Fail governments.The TD for Dublin South Central made her comments in the wake of the burst pipe in Drogheda which has cut of water to thousands of people in Louth and Meath East.

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