Coveney: “Writing off unpaid water charges would set a dangerous precedent and those who have paid will not be made a fool off” – TheLiberal.ie – Our News, Your Views

Coveney: “Writing off unpaid water charges would set a dangerous precedent and those who have paid will not be made a fool off”




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According to the new Minister for housing any plans to write off unpaid water charges would set a ‘dangerous precedent’ and it would be completely unfair.

Mr Coveney’s comments come after recent figures revealed that only 64% of the Irish people have paid their water charges. Mr Coveney says he fully believes those who have not paid should be punished for their actions, and that any possibility of a refund for those who have paid their charges seems increasingly unlikely.
 
Minister Coveney told Newstalk FM: “We’ve made it very clear in our Programme for Government that people who have paid are not going to be disadvantaged versus people who haven’t […] When we suspend charges, what we want is to suspend charges and penalties for the nine-month period to take the heat out of the situation.”

He said that it is view that Irish Water should be “pursuing people who haven’t paid. When there are charges that people are legally bound to pay, I think it would set a very dangerous precedent for us to simply write them off. That is not what I’d be advocating.”

He explained that Fine Gael wants to pursue people who haven’t paid in a way that will allow them to afford the charges. However, he added that “I am not going to make a fool out of people who have paid their water charges because they believed it was the right thing to do, and they believed they had a responsibility to do that.”

Source: Newstalk

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