Cabinet to clarify water charges before polls, Kenny says

Taoiseach, Enda Kenny has reiterated that the Government will make an announcement on the rate for water charges prior to the local elections on May 23rd.

Mr Kenny said the reason the Government had not confirmed a rate yet was that it was anxious to ensure the charge was fair and equitable for all water users.

“The average meter charge on an annual basis will be approximately €240 - that’s €60 per quarter - the reason we have to do it is bring up the infrastructure to the proper standard.

“I have met too many people who are living with boiled water notices, I have met too many people with an inferior infrastructure, I have met too many people where the treatment works and supply are not what they should be.

“And we will never be able to deal with this unless we have an entity that can borrow money separately from the government that can invest in fixing all these problems in providing a platform for the next 50 years for high-quality, high-volume affordable water.”

Mr Kenny said the Government was conscious of the need to strike a fair rate for vulnerable people such as elderly people living on their own or families with large numbers of children.

They were also conscious of taking into account the particular needs of people with particular illnesses or conditions requiring them to be able to access large volumes of water.

He instanced the case of Dublin city, where the supply system is currently operating at 96 per cent capacity and some 40 per cent of supply is being lost through leaks.

“We can’t sustain this, we have to fix it, and we ask everybody to understand there is a contribution necessary - and we will make that as fair and as affordable and as equitable.”

Asked whether he thought people might be more willing to pay for a water charge after the Government invested in improving the infrastructure and supply, Mr Kenny said that was not an option.

“Go and talk to the 20,000 people in Roscommon, go and talk to the people who are living at risk in Dublin and in Cork in terms of quality water - we need to get this right now.

“Long before we had the high technology that we have now, we had to live on food and water, now in 2014 we need a high-volume, high-quality, pristine water for our consumers, for our business and for multinational industries.

“And these are huge volumes of water - we have all the ingredients but we never faced up to this in the last 50 years, and you can’t have a situation where 40 per cent of the taxpayer’s money is leaking away into the ground.”

Mr Kenny was speaking in Cork where he was heckled by a small number of anti-water charge protesters on the South Mall as he launched the Ireland South Euro campaign of Cork based Senator Deirdre Clune.