Head2Head : Jack O'Sullivansays people who waste water are being subsidised through taxation by those who don't. Clare Dalysays water charges are simply an environmental cover for extra taxes on PAYE workers
Yes - Jack O'Sullivan:What we do with water reflects the fashion of each age. In our present time, we have transformed water from a spiritual substance that could baptize the newborn and purify the dead and the living, into a scarce resource in need of technological management. We have made it into a kind of cleaning fluid that has lost the ability to excite our imaginations, especially in the urban areas where most of us live. Yet water remains the primal stuff, without which life on Earth would not be possible; so why should we measure and charge people for consuming the stuff of life?
In earlier times, when water was clean and plentiful in Ireland, metering and charging for water would have been not only unnecessary but unethical. Yet in other countries with hot climates and a water scarcity, the Aquarian water sellers made a living on streets and in markets. If you were thirsty, you paid.
Today, in Ireland, we also pay for water - through our taxes, and every time we purchase bottled water, at a price per litre greater than we pay for petrol for the car. If it were not for the excise duty, wine or even whiskey would be only slightly more expensive than bottled water in your local bar.
But water out of the household tap is a different story - it is becoming more difficult and costly to provide good quality water in the ever-increasing quantities which we seem to need. Water scarcity in the greater Dublin area, cryptosporidium in Galway and Clonmel, increasing low-level pollution of our rivers and lakes, and the problems of quality and supply experienced by group water schemes throughout Ireland, are going to get worse as our climate changes.
Worldwide, increasing numbers of people are denied access to safe and good-quality water for drinking, cooking and washing. A forecast of growing water shortages in the heavily urbanised eastern half of the country has led Dublin City Council to plan for abstracting some 350 million litres of water a day from the Shannon, and conveying it by pipeline to Dublin.
At the same time, the current losses through leakage from the water supply system, though reduced in recent years, are forecast to continue near the present levels of 65 litres per household per day (customer side losses) and an additional 161 million litres per day (distribution leakage). The total losses of water in the Dublin system therefore amount to some 200 million litres per day: around 60 per cent of the quantity which Dublin City Council plans to abstract from Lough Ree! The root causes of these problems in Ireland, and the high cost of piped water, lie in the way we use water without demand management or conservation measures. People who waste water are subsidised through taxation by those people who are careful about how they use water, and the latter are usually the less well-off.
Advocating conservation by appealing to people's better nature will help, but not very much. Metering and charging is a more powerful and equitable tool, making people more conscious of the amounts of water they use - and the amounts all of us waste. If water is metered, turning off the dripping tap saves money, and installing a rain-water collection system could pay for itself. Farms and commercial premises are already metered, and their owners pay for water consumed, so it is not a major step to extend the system to domestic users.
But metering, and especially charging, must be implemented in a socially just way. Water is a necessity, and every person should be entitled to a reasonable quantity of water, sufficient for drinking, cooking, washing and cleaning, at no cost. Above that threshold, water should be charged.
At present, per capita domestic consumption of water in the greater Dublin area is approximately 145 litres per day; but this figure is only an average, concealing wide differences. We don't yet know what amount of water per person is necessary to ensure an adequate standard of living, but this could easily be determined.
There's no reason either why the allowance should not be changed seasonally, so that a week's or a month's free supply (depending on the frequency of meter reading and charging) could be greater when supplies are plentiful, and reduced at a time of water shortage. That would encourage conservation when it is most necessary.
But finally, let us not forget that access to clean water is a basic human right. Supplying water is a public service - and must not be privatised, to become a source of profit for some multinational or Irish company, to award directors and shareholders huge sums of money at the expense of the ordinary citizen.
It may be politically unfashionable to introduce water charges, but political views can change - like fashions - while our demand for water and the need to conserve it and to use it sustainably will continue.
Jack O'Sullivan is an environmental consultant and a member of the council of An Taisce
No - Clare Daly:This debate is not about metering, but rather whether there should be a direct charge for household water supply.
Water meters are already in place in most areas for every 1,000 dwellings. These meters allow the local authorities to monitor where there is a surge in water usage, enabling them to quickly respond to leakages. It is one of a number of welcome water conservation initiatives which has succeeded in reducing the amount of water lost every year.
Expanding these initiatives, replacing the outdated pipe network, and making simple changes to the building regulations - by, for example, switching to low-flow toilet cisterns - would have a far more dramatic effect on water consumption than the introduction of a new tax.
Justifying a direct charge for household water on the grounds of water conservation is simply a convenient "environmental" cover to extort extra taxation from PAYE taxpayers and pensioners.
Of course, this is not a new line of argument. The cheerleaders of the bin tax point to the rise in recycling rates as "evidence" of that charge's success but are silent on the fact that the actual amount of waste produced per person has consistently increased during this time. It's a charade.
The argument inaccurately assumes that the battle to conserve water can be won by altering everyday human behaviour. The reality is that the overwhelming majority of water that is wasted occurs, not from human negligence, but from a serious infrastructural deficit.
Ten years ago, approximately 46 per cent of water in the Dublin area was lost through leakage; it is now slightly below 30 per cent. While a significant reduction, this still means that almost one third of our water supply is lost through leakage! This is an absolutely astounding figure, which puts the water conservation battle in its true context.
Undoubtedly we could all be more conscious about the amount of water we use but this doesn't require a new double taxation. It can be addressed by education and awareness. There is no direct charge now, but already many people have bought water butts to collect rainwater and use it for gardens and washing cars. Many more people have heeded the "tap tips" campaign and implemented simple measures like not leaving the tap on while brushing their teeth.
Such initiatives, while important, can only have a limited impact because we all need water to live. Charging for it does not eliminate that need. It merely puts a price on it. Most people realise that in a supposedly modern and civilised society basic human necessities such as water should not be treated as commodities. They should be available to all regardless of means.
The latest attempt to get around this point is to claim that a free allowance could be made available up to a certain level and that only after this point is exceeded would the charge kick in. While this sounds reasonable on the surface, it raises a whole number of issues. It means a wealthy person can wash their five cars every day if they have the money to pay for it, but someone on a low income has to ration the washing of their five children! At what level would the allowance be set? Who decides? No matter what promises are made, in every case in Ireland and internationally where these charges have been introduced, they start small but rise relentlessly.
In Bolivia, a social explosion and widespread rioting was sparked when the price of the privatised water supply reached 20 per cent of average earnings to boost the profits of its multinational owner. The debate cannot be separated from the neo-liberal agenda which predominates internationally where public services are handed over to private companies for a fraction of their value.
Providing a reliable, safe, clean water supply costs money. Nobody disputes this but it is an essential public service, which Irish people pay for through our central taxation rather than a commodity to be bought at the marketplace. The fact that successive governments have failed to adequately fund local authorities since the abolition of household rates is not an argument for workers and pensioners to pay on the double. If I pay for my week's shopping and it later emerges that the shopkeeper failed to pay his workers, nobody would say that I should go back and pay again. So why should it be different here?
While income tax has been lowered in recent years (in return for modest wage increases), extremely high levels of indirect taxation overwhelmingly paid by ordinary workers have resulted in burgeoning tax returns. We could provide water as a service for all in the worst of economic times and there is certainly no lack of funding to do it now.
The battle over the introduction of metered or any other type of charge for household water is a battle about taxation justice rather than water conservation.
Clare Daly is a Socialist Party representative on Fingal County Council
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Last week Susan Philips and Syyed Siraz H Zaidi debated the question: Does Islam encourage terrorism? Here is an edited selection of your comments:
Fundamentalism encourages terrorism, not Islam in and of itself.
- J Burke, United States
I think that Susan Philips has courageously raised key questions about how Islamists use Islam to further their cause. Syyed Siraj Zaidi seems to be naive on this issue and seems sadly unconcerned as to the need to combat Islamists.
- Paddy Monaghan, Ireland
If all the Irish are drunken IRA-supporting traditionalists; all the Germans are Nazi sympathisers; and all gay men, or priests for that matter, are paedophiles etc, the answer is Yes. But please, can we come up with a better question? Being Irish, I well remember a similar question on taking up a job in the UK in the 1990s.
- Bernard Troy, Spain
Congratulation to Susan Phillips and The Irish Times for having the courage to write and publish an independent and plain-speaking analysis of one of the biggest, yet least discussed, challenges facing democratic societies.
- Oliver Donohoe, Ireland
Western interference in the Middle East is the root cause of attacks like 9/11 and the London bombings. These attacks are born out of a nationalistic sense of grievance for all the wrongs perpetrated by the West for far too many generations now. Religion's function in all of this is merely to allow the players to rustle up the courage for their actions. The Middle East has not been allowed to mature and secularise as Europe has: witness Britain's/USA's violent removal of the Iraq Communist Party in the 1920s.
- Charles Murphy, Ireland
Syyed Siraj H Zaidi says "In Islam, killing a human is an act equal in gravity to unbelief".
Did you get that folks? In the eyes of this Muslim scholar, I am no better than a murderer. Why? Because I am not a Muslim. And you know what Islam prescribes for murderers? Yes, death. Can he really be saying that? Doesn't that eloquently illustrate the very accusation he attempts to prove wrong?
- John Donnelly, Australia
No. I don't think that Islam necessarily encourages terrorism. Historically there may have been a time when Islam was spread by the sword, but this does not justify terrorism. There were no bombs in the time of the Prophet and nowhere in the Koran does it say, for example, "take an aeroplane and crash it into a tower teeming with innocent people". That goes against the peaceful and non-violent teachings that the vast majority of Muslims espouse.
- Conor, Ireland
It is as ridiculous to say that Islam is a religion of terrorism because the terrorists say they do it in the name of Allah, as it is to say that Christianity is a religion of war because of the Crusades.
- Philippe, Ireland
Ireland is now a cosmopolitan society, which we welcome, as it is very good for our country. However, Islam seeks to conquer. Our Government and citizens should be made aware of this, and act accordingly, before it is too late.
- Yvette Shadwell Goggin, Ireland
I think the problem with theology is that there is no agreed mechanism for resolving difference of opinion. It's one sacred text against another.
Obviously this itself does not cause terrorism, but it begins a process of dogma which is immune from doubt and rational criticism. Combined with political and sociological reasons, some serious problems manifest themselves.
- Alex Staveley, Ireland
To base one's culture on revealed truth is to invite brutality and carnage. To base one's beliefs on the barbaric preaching of a more primitive past, no matter how filtered by modern sensibilities, is to open the door to fundamentalism. Only by demanding reason and compassion as the bedrock of human action can we truthfully distance ourselves from the terrorist. In other words, religion sucks.
- Stephen, Ireland
Mr Zaidi triumphantly declares that there are over one billion Muslims in the world today, more than 20 million in the EU and 52 predominantly Muslims countries. Unless we want 100 million Muslims in the EU, then we must vote down the EU constitution - sorry, "Reform Treaty".
A vote for this treaty is a vote for Turkish membership of the EU. It is a vote for the freedom of movement of 75 million Turkish Muslims and a vote for the accelerated Islamisation of Europe. Our grandchildren will never understand.
- Conor O'Brien, Ireland