Refunds for water bills are no use when taps run dry

WE’VE had barely a few days of seriously bad weather and already we are having to ration water to homes across a large swathe of the country – and this is largely due to the amount of water lost in leaking and burst domestic and public supply pipes.

Of course, those politicians who campaigned so vigorously against Irish Water – and the extra revenue that water bills gave the utility to repair these leaks – are nowhere to be seen now the taps are running dry.

Let’s not forget too that these rabble-rousers and others also campaigned vociferously against water meters – the very devices that reliably tell householders and businesses if there is a leak somewhere in their pipes.

Irish Water, as originally envisioned, was a great idea to get all of this country’s creaking and inadequate water and sewerage networks brought up to 21st-century standards.

Fresh, clean drinking water is a precious resource, so a modest charge on households and business, in addition to taxpayers’ money, would have helped bring us the quality and security of supply we are entitled to.

Instead we will now be stuck with a Victorian water and sewerage system in a modern republic despite Irish Water’s best efforts.

I can only hope those politicians and householders who campaigned for Irish Water refunds will take it on the chin when the taps run dry again in the future. AOIFE KELLY,

Cork.

Mind your language

SINN Féin demands respect but shows no respect to the Protestants in the North by wanting to force the Irish language on them.

This was done in the south in the last century. Michael Collins said we needed to make Irish compulsory in schools ‘to make little nationalists out of our children’.

The Irish language was used in the South to discriminate against Protestants and non-republicans in jobs.

In the early years of RTÉ, it was stuffed with Irish-language speakers. Even today RTÉ spews out its pro-Irish language propaganda and gives Sinn Féin an easy time.

An Irish Language Act will be used to de-Anglicise the North and to discriminate against Protestants in civil service jobs and provide scores of privileged jobs for Sinn Féin supporters.

Discrimination in favour of Irishlanguage speakers is far more widespread in the south than people think – it’s in education, exams and State jobs.

There are grants for Irish speakers. How many people know that if a taxi has a sign with the Irish word ‘tacsaí’ on it, then the State pays half the cost of the sign?

There is a lot of hatred towards the Irish language in the south which is not acknowledged by the media. J. HYLAND, Dún Laoghaire, Co. Dublin.

Know your ‘rights’

BRENDA Power (Irish Daily Mail, yesterday) tells us the truth about the thug industry that made life hell in Tallaght, Dublin.

Poverty does not create criminals. Those who laugh at the mention of earning a living and spend their lives burning out cars, terrorising their neighbours and going on sun holidays, are rewarded by the State.

Social welfare, housing and legal aid have, somehow, become their ‘human rights.’

The people who work to earn a living are punished by the State, and pay for everything, without any reference to their ‘human rights’. I was born into poverty. Thank God there wasn’t an industry of psychology available to excuse and explain and expect bad behaviour.

I am not a ‘product of my environment.’

My environment is created by me and my hard work to be selfsupporting by my own contributions and not by living off your efforts. I’m mad as hell. PHYL KENNEDY,

Galway city.