irish water

There are no votes to be gained by band-waggon-jumpers in discussing the nitty-gritty of implementing Irish Water. Lost of votes to be gained by jumping up and down and demanding free water. They might as well go the whole hog and say "I have a right to sustenance so give me food for free as well".
 
I have no particular issue with supports being put in place for those that genuinely cannot afford water charges - it is inevitable that there will be people who cannot. Implementing a support for them is expensive but they are, in effect, being supported at the moment. They difference is they will now have to actively seek such support but that again does not rankle with me - better to seek on the basis of need instead of expect on the basis of entitlement.
 
but we never had free water in the first place! it just now we are paying for it twice, how can that be fair?
 
Very few are saying they do not want to pay for water. What the government is being told by the electorate is that tax payers already pay for water through the general taxation system, which for water charges is currently progressive and fair. There is also a genuine fear that the new HSE style quango of Irish Water is being prepared for future privatisation. The government ignore this at their peril as can be seen at the righteous seething anger at the protest march and the wipe out of Fine Gael and Labour in the local and the by-elections.
The parts of the taxation system that are fair and equitable takes into account the ability to pay and it is the best way to ensure the most vulnerable are protected. The new water charges are neither fair nor equitable; they are the worst form of taxation, highly regressive in nature and in their application. Fine Gael and Labour's new water tax is regressive and it targets the sick, the unemployed, the elderly and the disabled who spend more time in their homes and will use more water incurring higher charges. Needless to say volks on the lowest means will pay a much higher proportion of their income on them. Is that the type of regressive government taxes that people want? Not on any evidence that I can see.
I would expect a tribunal in the future to examine how Irish Water was formed. There are serious questions to be asked of how tax payer’s funds poured into Irish Water have been mis- spent. Millions of tax payer’s money has been squandered on PR consultants and propaganda campaigns instead of repairing the leaks that lose 40% of potable water. The water taxes and government spin cannot hide the fact that these regressive water charges are unethical, immoral and unfair and the majority of the population believe that water should be paid for through fair progressive general taxation. I fully support withholding payment until the government reforms the tax and actually listens to the majority of tax payers.
 

What a load of cliched hyperbole! Look here are some facts before you continue ranting.
1. We are still spending more than we take in so further inroads are needed to either reduce spending or increase the tax take.
2. As per the recommendations from the troika, we need to make changes to how we collect tax, to be less transaction based and more predictable/regular.
3. The property tax and the water charges are two steps in this direction.

Absolutely I agree that how Irish Water has been set up is an issue with the electorate. I don't agree with it either (as I said right back when it was formed on this site) and there are serious questions to be asked about this and the millions wasted since. I fully support this stance.
However there is so much hot air being spouted which are distracting from this and other important points as Purple has pointed out.
Talk of it being "unfair, unethical, immoral", give me a break! Water costs money to supply, we can no longer afford to pay for this out of the current tax take, therefore we need to pay for it directly. Perfectly fair as far as I'm concerned. The sooner we move on from this and the sooner we focus on the actual operation of Irish Water and how this revenue is spent the better as far as I'm concerned.
 
I know other countries have water charges and property taxes...
But where these taxes are implemented, is the marginal rate of taxation 52% for anyone who is earning in excess of €32,000?
 
for the love of god, how many more times, we are all paying for our water usage as it is! what part of your brain is not picking up that! ???
 
blueband said:
but we never had free water in the first place! it just now we are paying for it twice, how can that be fair?
Click to expand...

Everyone who was on a private supply was paying for it twice, effectively subsidising those who could avail of a public supply, now everyone is only paying for it once.
 
Leo said:
Everyone who was on a private supply was paying for it twice, effectively subsidising those who could avail of a public supply, now everyone is only paying for it once.
Click to expand...
eh...no, everyone is now paying paying for it twice..
 
Why do some people continue with this idea that we are "paying for water twice". On that basis are we not also paying twice for :
- car tax
- TV licence
- NCT
- airport taxes
- taxes on alcohol
etc, etc.....

The very same people who want to abolish the water charge want the delivery system overhauled (the pipes). But they want someone else to pay (they always wants someone else to pay for everything).
I fully agree that the Govt have made a mess of the implementation of the charge (and just complicated it today with tax reliefs), but the principle of charging for such a utility (to pay for the delivery overhaul and to encourage conservation) is just common sense. The problem is that a certain part of the electorate, encouraged by populist politicians, expect the State (other taxpayers) to pay for everything.
Four years ago this little country was bust (thanks to FF) and a host of celebrity economist appearing nightly on Vincent Browne postulated that it was inevitable that the country would have to seek a second bailout. I don't hear much from Professors Lucey and Gurdiev more recently now that our reputation was been much enhanced, our borrowing capability much improved (and we are still borrowing to fund our spending- even if it is at a much reduced level).
I can fully understand that SF, FF and the looney left brigade don't want to see the economy improving. Their populist strategy is based on being critical of every effort to bridge the gap between what we spend and what we take in. In the financial world of SF, People who never made any Profit, the Anti Everything Alliance etc etc it is the "rich" who should pay for everything. Disneyworld economics.
 
blueband said:
for the love of god, how many more times, we are all paying for our water usage as it is! what part of your brain is not picking up that! ???
Click to expand...

for the love of God how many more times, we are moving to a broader tax base as the current tax base was not enough to pay for everything. Therefore water charges are no longer being paid for from the current tax take. What part of your brain in not picking up that! It is exactly the same concept as the property tax. Previously local services were paid for from the state coffers (i.e. the taxes we paid). Now they are paid for from the property tax. Is it really that hard to get your head around this?
 
blueband said:
eh...no, everyone is now paying paying for it twice..
Click to expand...

As others have pointed out, just because you pay other forms of tax does not mean you pay for any state service twice. Do you pay refuse charges twice? How about electricity?

The public water supply will now be majority funded directly by the water charge, the gap between the revenue collected in water charges and the true cost of providing the service will come from the exchequer, and so the tax paying public will pay this shortfall. So again, those who pay for and maintain private water supplies and treatment facilities will continue to pay more than their share to subsidise those who are in a position to avail of public services.

No doubt a time will come when Irish Water is self-financing, then by very definition, people who avail of this service will pay for it, and pay for it once. Those who do not avail of it, will not pay for it. All seems fair to me, but I'm a logical sort.

At this point, I can only assume you do not want to accept that, or the arguments for a wider tax base, and are in the band of people who think every public service should be free to the end user because the so called rich can pay for everything.
 
Leo said:
At this point, I can only assume you do not want to accept that, or the arguments for a wider tax base, and are in the band of people who think every public service should be free to the end user because the so called rich can pay for everything.
Click to expand...

The irony is that in this country, more than any other in the developed world, the so called rich do pay for almost everything. We should be grateful to them that they do, not resentful of them because they are smarter and/or work harder than the rest of us.
 
I wonder how many people will turn out for the big Irish Water Protest on 1st November.

100,000 turned out last Saturday and that rattled both FG and Labour,so lets see what the 1st November Protest does to all those backbenchers who so far keep on propping up Enda and Joan
 
The way Irish water introduced water charges was wrong as was the way they were awarding themselves a bonus so soon. No wonder people are angry. I also think it should have been left a year or two as people were only getting used to property tax. I think there should be a tax on water ok and it should be based on the number of adults in the house. I do think there should be an allowance for adult children who are in college but not adult children who are working and still at home. It has to be based on how much a house uses otherwise there is no incentive to conserve water. I am not looking forward to another bill at all but feel it is needed as long as it's done fairly and everyone has to pay.
I'm fed up of people who want to pay for nothing, who object to everything and yet are the first to shout when a service isn't there for them or isn't good enough for them.
 
what is fair about setting up a quango that has wasted millions from the outset? I am sick and tired about this talk to conserve water, that applies to california or australia et al. The government could have easily explained to the troika that infrastructure is not in place to introduce water charges. This is a shambles from the start. Its the same old carry on jobs for the boys and forget about realism ie build a proper water system. I could go on but wont.

I am extremely proud of the people who demonstated today and the polls tomorrow will have a stronger message.
 
Now that there is (and will be) a cap on the cost to households we can finally see that water preservation was never really the motive and it's just a tax by another name. Rather than setting up a whole new quango why not just add 160 euro per year onto the Household Charge and be done with it?
 
The whole IW saga has been a shambles. They should have scrapped direct charges and insisted that a unified state water utility was required to overhaul our water infrastructure. I guess that they didn't drop the charges as heads would have had to roll and the Government would likely have fallen . . this way they'll probably manage to bump along till early next year.

This folly should spell the end for Kenny (personally) and the Labour Party (in general) which, for me, is the silver lining in all of this. I can't be bothered to return my form.
 
+1 if it brings down Kenny and Co then at least some good has come out of it..
 
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