One of Fianna Fáil’s election commitments is to get rid of Irish Water in its current form. However, the party’s environment spokesman, Barry Cowen, has today confirmed that the party would re-introduce charges in the future.
Mr. Cowen said: “We want to abolish Irish water, we want to invest in a water structure and we will invest more than is presently being invested by the existing regime”.
He added “But yes, we accept that if you have a system that is fit for purpose, if you have system where everybody gets based on quality, based on delivery, based on need and based on leakage, if you can reach the targets then yes, there is a system whereby people can make their contribution over and above taxation.”
“It will be over taxation, it will be in the region of €50 or €100, I don’t know,”
“But it will be for a Government at that time to decide on that. But only when the system is fit for purpose, only when the network is as it should be across the State.”
Under Fianna Fáil’s pre-election plans, 100 of the 700 staff currently working with Irish Water would be retained. The remaining employees would be redeployed within local authorities or would be offered redundancies.