The Taoiseach Leo Varadkar has said the prospects of the water charges debate being reopened before the next General Election looks very unlikely as the Government have already decided not to pursue the issue any further.
Mr Varadkar who was speaking about the recent water shortage crisis that occurred in the North East last week, said that although he would like to see a system of were water charges were implemented to cover the costs of repairs to piping across the country he said such a scenario is not on the cards as the suspension of charges will be upheld for the time being.
However the Taoiseach did admit that even if the charges were still in place they would not have necessarily prevented leaks such as the one in Drogheda as such incidents are inevitable regardless of whether or not piping was replaced beforehand.
Mr Varadkar said: “I think it’s probably a bit too simplistic to say that if we had water charges or if we set up Irish Water 20 years ago, the pipes wouldn’t break.”
“I’m sure under any system pipes break on occasion and they need to be fixed.”
“It was the argument certainly of my party and other parties that it would be better if we could fund water services through water charges.”