EU official warns on water charges

A senior EU official has warned that the European Commission may force Ireland to introduce water charges and remains "totally opposed" to their absence here.The director of the EU Cohesion Fund, Mr Jean-Francois Verstrynge, said yesterday that it may be necessary to force the Government's hand on the issue in negotiations on a new water directive. Ireland is alone in Europe in not charging for household water, and while the Commission wished to negotiate in the first place, he said: "We have insisted on water charges.".The Commission's support for the charges is based on the environmental principle that those who use or pollute natural resources must pay the full economic cost. Depending on how it is calculated the full economic cost of providing water to a household ranges from £110 to £150 a year.Mr Verstrynge's comments reopen one of the most contentious political issues of the last few years on which the two Government parties, Fianna Fail and the Progressive Democrats, were deeply divided during the last general election campaign.While the Progressive Democrats said they believed water charges were needed, Fianna Fail was adamant that they would not be reintroduced. The outgoing rainbow government had abolished them in the run-up to the election, with Labour in particular believing it was losing support in working-class areas over the issue.The Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, said yesterday it was not envisaged that water charges would be reintroduced because of their political history. He accepted the environmental case for them, but it remained to be seen if there would be a stipulation that the full cost of water services be recovered in the final draft of the EU water directive.Asked about the view of the Tanaiste, Ms Harney, that water charges are necessary, Mr Dempsey said he was articulating "Government policy".According to Mr Verstrynge, water charges are necessary to promote the idea that the polluter pays. Water should have an economic price, and charges should prepare Ireland for the time when EU Cohesion funds run out. "We hope that won't come too soon, but it will come. At some point you will join the richer countries," he warned.Ireland's infrastructural and environmental problems would not be then solved. Water charges were "the only way you can mobilise private capital to continue the job the EU has started," he said.They were important psychologically to change perceptions that Brussels money will always be there. Having them was one way to end the public's EU "dependency culture", he said, and to demonstrate that "if you want clean water, you pay for it".Mr Verstrynge told The Irish Times there "may be a situation down the line" where the Commission will have to force the Government to apply them. It was also likely to be an issue raised by other member-states in negotiations on EU Cohesion and Structural funds for Ireland post-1999.Speaking in Co Clare following the announcement of the Government's 1998 water and sewerage programme, Mr Verstrynge said the Commission was very satisfied with the way Ireland was using Cohesion funds. Irish authorities had got priorities right, notwithstanding water pollution incidents. The EU favoured Irish "catchment-based strategies" for improving and protecting water in rivers and lakes.