The one-trick pony populists will tap into any discontent

Hard-line left TDs are desperate to keep the divisive issue of water charges to the fore – no matter how much it costs, writes Philip Ryan

THERE is an increasingly desperate attempt by hard-line left-wing TDs to put water charges at the centre of any political debate in Leinster House.

The one-trick pony populists pine for the days of public unrest which saw government ministers trapped in their cars for hours and the President called a “midget parasite”.

The Irish left are nothing without protest. If they are not marching down O’Connell Street in Dublin beneath a banner condemning water charges, they are reduced to criticising global imperialism or something else they read in a Noam Chomsky book.

The anti-water charges campaign could be described as Ireland’s Brexit or Donald Trump victory given the impact it had on the General Election result. But this ignores the fact that the majority of people in rural Ireland couldn’t care less about city and town folk eventually having to pay for water.

For now, water charges are suspended but those elected on the back of the campaign to abolish them know support for the movement is waning now that the issue has been parked for the duration while an expert commission conducts a review, ahead of a debate by an Oireachtas committee.

It will then go to a Dail vote, where any push to reintroduce charges will be voted down. In the meantime, hard left TDs need to remind voters of their relevance by finding ways to force water charges back on to the agenda.

Last week, a private member’s bill was tabled proposing an amendment to article 28 of the Constitution which would read as follows: “The Government shall be collectively responsible for the protection, management and maintenance of the public water system. The Government shall ensure in the public interest that this resource remains in public ownership and management.”

The amendment was regarded as either naively or purposely simple, depending on who you asked in Leinster House last week. The main concern was that the bill failed to take into account the many group water schemes across the country that rely on public supplies.

There is also legislation in place which would make it all but impossible for a government, if there was an administration stupid enough, to sell off the State’s water services to a private operator.

The bill was proposed by Dublin South Central TD Joan Collins, who lives in Crumlin, where it is safe to say there are not too many group water schemes.

Collins is a member of Independents4Change, which sounds like a political party named by a group of 14-yearolds fighting for the right to smoke cigarettes behind the school bike shed.

Members include former vineyard owner and restaurateur Mick Wallace, Dublin Fingal TD Clare Daly and Dublin Bay North’s Tommy Broughan. Other Independent TDs are aligned to the party for Dail speaking rights but are not official members.

The group signed up to the Right2Change principles, which was an evolution of the Right2Water campaign, before the General Election.

On Monday last, the group trundled across the road from Leinster House to a function room in Buswell’s Hotel on Dublin’s Molesworth Street to unveil the constitutional amendment aimed at ensuring that Irish Water could never be privatised.

In a statement after the event, Collins urged Fianna Fail and the Independent Alliance to back her proposal once it came before the Dail.

She specifically targeted Minister for State John Halligan who signed off on the bill while in Opposition. After some discussion at a parliamentary party meeting, Fianna Fail decided there were no political gains to be made by opposing the bill, even though it had significant concerns with the wording.

No one wanted to back the bill but the party has been worn down by the water debate and is now at the point where it knows ‘when they are explaining, they are losing’. So it said it would back the bill while also expressing legitimate reservations.

But this wasn’t enough for Collins, who insisted she did not want her legislation “diluted or delayed”.

Without the support of Fianna Fail, the Government had little choice but to allow the amendment to pass through a Dail second stage debate and on to committee stage where the significantly flawed wording would face pre-legislative scrutiny.

Civil servants will now spend hours mulling over the legal implications of the bill while politicians will also discuss the amendment at length at committee hearings. All at the expense of the taxpayer, of course.

During the course of an hour-and-a-half Dail debate on Wednesday evening, Housing Minister Simon Coveney even offered the services of his departmental staff to help Collins tease out the intricacies of changing the Constitution.

Coveney has done himself no favours pandering to the left and Fianna Fail on this issue, especially among an increasingly frustrated number of Fine Gael backbench TDs who feel the party is being trampled all over by the Opposition.

Fine Gaelers are also still sore over the housing minister’s post-election comments on RTE’s Prime Time which effectively opened the discussion on suspending charges. Even some of his supporters are getting tired of his poor political judgment.

The ‘water in public ownership’ debate was measured, balanced and almost collegial as there is nobody elected to the Dail who thinks it would be wise to sell off the State’s water services to a private company. It would be political suicide.

The Labour Party, while in government, had the foresight to include a provision in the Irish Water Services Act requiring the Dail and Seanad to vote on the privatisation of the State utility company. And, even if it did make it through the Oireachtas, the proposal would have to be put to a public vote.

All this was pointed out to Collins throughout the debate by the likes of Fianna Fail’s Barry Cowen, the Labour Party’s Jan O’Sullivan and Fine Gael’s Damien English.

But she was having none of it and insisted water services could be sold off as quickly as the State’s share in Aer Lingus.

Collins knows that a Taoiseach who signed off on such a deal would be facing an election very soon after the legislation passed through the Dail.

The constitutional amendment was nothing more than a Dail stunt aimed at making life difficult for a resurgent Fianna Fail and a Government that seems to be in a perpetual state of near collapse.

Hatred of water charges helped Collins and her colleagues get re-elected but the issue is parked for now and there are plenty of more pressing matters that she could turn her attention to while we await the outcome of the expert review of water charges.

‘Nobody in the Dail thinks it would be wise to sell off water services’