We have to pay for water – one way or the other

By Ciaran Cannon TD

Galway East

Whether it be in supporting our own families, our local GAA club, or indeed anything that we really care about, the need to use past experiences to determine future decision making is a very important one.

In the words of a very wise man: “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.”

This week the Chief Executive of Galway County Council outlined in quite stark terms to his Councillors how seriously underfunded our local authority is.

This is not unique to Galway. All of our local authorities have been grossly underfunded since a monumentally irresponsible decision was taken by Fianna Fail to abolish domestic rates in 1977.

In that one cynical and ultimately successful attempt to entice voters into supporting them, Fianna Fail pulled the financial rug from under our local authorities and left them bereft of funds that were absolutely crucial to them.

Our local authorities have never recovered and in an attempt to shore up some of that lost revenue, the very same Fianna Fail imposed income taxes of up to 65% in the eighties.

In light of that very negative experience, I find it difficult to believe that we are right back in that very same place again.

In another cynical attempt to woo voters, particularly those who support Sinn Fein, Fianna Fail are proposing to abolish water charges and increase taxation to cover the cost of our water services infrastructure.

This is the same Fianna Fail who in their 2009 budget stated quite emphatically that they were committed to broadening our tax base by introducing water charges. This was the very wise approach taken by Finance Minister Brian Lenihan at the time.

Fianna Fail continues to support the concept of a national water utility because it is a sensible one. In fact the party calls for Irish Water to remain in place in its recent submission to the Commission on Water Services.

So let’s be clear here.

Fianna Fail wants to keep Irish Water but wants to fund it at a cost of one billion euro per year from our taxation system. A taxation system is already struggling to pay for healthcare, housing, education and critically important infrastructure. Something is going to have to give.

That is why Brian Lenihan, quite rightly, talked about broadening our tax base in his 2009 budget speech and suggested that charging for water was one way to do exactly that. Let’s look at that for a moment.

We are the only country in the whole of the EU not to charge for water. We are the only country out of 35 countries in the OECD not to charge for water. Ask yourself why is that the case?

Every one of those countries sees the sense in broadening their tax take beyond the normal income taxes, VAT, excise and stamp duty because every one of those taxes takes a major nosedive in times of recession. The introduction of property taxes and water charges helps to smooth out those highs and lows in our economy. Economists call them “anti-cyclical” taxes.

In other words they provide a stable and steady income for governments. They don’t go up when the economy booms and don’t disappear when the going gets tough. In short, they make sense.

That is why proposals to abolish these kinds of reliable income streams are deeply irresponsible.

I grew up in rural East Galway. We went to a well at the end of a field to get drinking water.

Yes, it was a lovely ritual that marked the beginning of each day but in 2016 our drinking water now comes through our taps.

Those of us that live in that part of East Galway saw the thousands of hours spent in digging roadside trenches, in putting in pipes all the way from Abbeyknockmoy to Carrabane and in connecting each and every house along the way.

We know the value and the cost of a clean and reliable supply of water and the vast majority of us are willing to pay for it.

What Fianna Fail are now suggesting is that those of us who have been paying for years for water through our Group Water Schemes or in providing our own wells, will now also pay for everyone else’s water and sewage treatment through our taxes. The extra imposition on our exchequer can mean one of only two things. Either our taxes go up significantly or things like healthcare and education remain permanently underfunded.

Is it fair that a family in East Galway who pay for their own well and septic tank will also have to fund, through their taxes, the filling of a private swimming pool in South Dublin? This is exactly what Fianna Fail are proposing.

Every rural dweller will subsidise the water and sewage treatment costs of urban dwellers. There will be no incentives whatsoever to conserve the precious resource that is our drinking water.

The taxes we pay will be stretched even more thinly across all of government spending and people will ultimately suffer.

Everyone who cares about the future of our country needs to know what is going on here. It is yet another attempt by a party to buy our votes with our own money. In fact it is even worse. Fianna Fail want to use the taxes of rural dwellers to buy the votes of Sinn Fein supporters in urban Ireland.

We can’t let that happen.