FF WATER U-TURN: WE WILL PURSUE THE NON-PAYERS

Shambles as party grandees reverse pledges made by Barry Cowen, who Fianna Fáil yesterday said was too unwell to discuss the issue...

FIANNA FÁIL last night performed a dramatic u-turn over water bills – saying non-payers WILL be pursued for what they owe if the charge is axed.

The party still insists that if water charges are halted, as expected, there will be no refunds to the 900,000 ‘good citizens’ who have paid up.

However, after a massive public backlash, Fianna Fáil accepts this is unfair – so party grandees now say non-payers must be made to cough up as well.

This directly contradicts what Environment spokesman Barry Cowen told the Irish Daily Mail just a week before the election. Mr Cowen – who was yesterday said to be sick and therefore unable to discuss the issue – said at the

time: ‘The law will be changed, Irish Water will cease to be, and those customers who have not paid will not have to pay.’

Yesterday, however, the position was that ‘those who have consumed without paying’ will not be let off.

Fianna Fáil frontbencher Timmy Dooley, from Clare, insisted that there would be no refunds, saying: ‘It’s a bit like this – if you’ve bought something yesterday, and you’ve consumed it, you don’t get your money back. That’s it!

However Mr Dooley then made it clear that in the interests of fairness, non-payers should also have to cough up. ‘I totally understand that people want equity and fairness to apply, whereby those who have consumed without paying are still faced with that obligation,’ he said.

And Limerick TD Willie O’Dea said: ‘The point about it is that what we’ve been saying, until the time that it is abolished, people who haven’t paid are still liable.’

However, the continued pursuit of non-payers entirely contradicts Mr Cowen’s comments to this newspaper, and the latest controversy has come at the worst possible time for party leader Micheál Martin as he

‘Tax credit idea has not come from FF’

seeks to become taoiseach himself.

Mr Cowen also told RTÉ’s Prime Time this week that the abolition of Irish Water and the ending of charges were ‘red-line issues’ for any deal with Fine Gael in this Dáil.

However, he was further humiliated yesterday when Micheál Martin told the Fianna Fáil parliamentary party meeting there were no red-line issues, or non- negotiable areas, at this point – a position then widely repeated by party’s spokesmen across the media yesterday.

Mr Cowen, brother of the former taoiseach Brian Cowen, did not attend yesterday’s meeting. He is said to be sick and has been uncontactable.

He has been widely criticised within the party ranks for going too far, and Fianna Fáil Public Expenditure spokesman Seán Fleming TD was sent onto RTÉ’s Six One News to repair the damage last night, declaring: ‘To say it is a red-line issue is not the case at all.’

Fianna Fáil has been stung by the huge backlash from ‘good citizens’ who have paid the charge and now feel that they are being financially penalised for doing their civic duty, while those people who refused to pay a lawful charge are being given a pat on the back.

It would cost €120million to refund those who have paid up, compared to estimated costs of billions of euro from scrapping Irish Water. Nevertheless party l eaders are still resolutely against a refund scheme.

Yesterday, Mr Martin also laughed off a media claim that his party and Fine Gael were proposing to solve the ‘refund crisis’ through a form of tax credit for those who have paid their charges.

A party spokesman made it clear on an official basis that no such soundings have been made or canvassed with anyone by Fianna Fáil.

The party spokesman on Finance, Michael McGrath, was even more stark, saying that the tax credit idea ‘did not come f rom anyone in Fianna Fáil’.

He said: ‘I have read claims of Fianna Fáil suggesting a tax credit for those who have paid. We haven’t even mentioned that issue. Certainly, any idea of a tax credit has not come from the Fianna Fáil ranks. I have no idea where that is coming from.’

However, Fianna Fáil were not the only ones left embarrassed yesterday – as Minister for Agriculture, Food and the Marine Simon Coveney personally apologised to the Fine Gael parliamentary party f or suggesting that all water issues were on the table in any talks on government formation.

The remarks led to an explosion in public emotion on the issue, with particular anger from compliant Irish Water customers, feuds on social media, and a surge in queries over how to cancel direct debit authorities in favour of the utility.

The national backlash has led to both main parties scrambling to restore their own credibility and ironically that of Irish Water payment demands, offering little hope that Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael can put together a government that can clean up the worsening mess.

Fianna Fáil’s position is now closer to that of Taoiseach Enda Kenny, who said this week that all citizens should pay their water bills.

Fianna Fáil said it would never advocate that anyone fail to comply with the law of the land, even as claims swirled about the cancellation of standing orders with the utility and the payment of the latest due bills having slowed to a trickle.

Fianna Fáil deputies claimed yesterday that the party’s position was clear, had been outlined in the manifesto, and related to the time ahead. Mayo TD Dara Calleary said: ‘We voted against the water charges that Fine Gael and Labour were bringing in, but it did become law and the bills were due, so that has to be respected.’

However, a host of other politicians have come out to say that ‘good citizens’ who paid their bills should get their cash back.

Independent TDs Ruth Coppinger, Maureen O’Sullivan and John Halligan, and Green Party TD Eamon Ryan, have all said that homeowners who have paid should be refunded.

Speaking on Seán O’Rourke’s RTÉ show yesterday, Mr Ryan said: ‘Those who paid should be refunded out of pure fairness.’

Ms O’Sullivan told the Mail: ‘If the water charges are abolished, people should get their money back’ – while

‘It became law, that must be respected’

Mr Halligan said: ‘ Absolutely they should be refunded.’

Social Democrats TD and co-leader of the party Catherine Murphy also told the Mail: ‘I think they should [be refunded], out of fairness.’

Legislation passed last year allows a civil debt of at least €500, through court judgment, to be extracted from wages, salaries and social welfare, just like Local Property Tax.

However, many furious homeowners have revealed that they have already contacted Irish Water to cancel their direct debit payments.

The utility last night admitted it had received a high volume of calls in relation to the issue.

WHAT a farce! In the run-up to the election, Fianna Fáil’s Barry Cowen was unequivocal to the Irish Daily Mail – and others – on the issue of water charges.

Under a Fianna Fáil administration they would be abolished, he said, and non-payers would not be chased for outstanding payments. Water charges was a so- called red-line issue for the party. And of course it was, for Fianna Fáil was campaigning strongly to bring water charges to an end.

As we pointed out, the party’s policy of no refunds for payers meant a financial penalty for almost a million good citizens who obeyed the law and paid their bills.

Now, in the face of a massive public backlash over this utterly amoral and unfair approach, we suddenly have a different narrative. Mr Cowen is silenced, and Micheál Martin says this is now not a red-line issue (even though those who voted for Fianna Fáil were told it was).

And while the party is still insisting on no refunds, it is accepting this would be unfair to everyone who paid up: and party TDs are now saying that those who refused to pay the water charges should be pursued for the money.

Good luck with that. As well as being a total breach of an election promise, this also places Fianna Fáil in the position of arguing that people should be pursued for not having paid a charge which they are insisting should not exist. And they presumably expect this policy of pursuing non-payers to be accepted by a Dáil in which the majority of TDs stood against the charges.

Astonishingly, Fianna Fáil is only back in a position of potential power for a few days and already it is all over the place on a key election issue. It has won the case for suspending, if not scrapping, water charges. But when water charges are indeed stopped, as promised by Mr Martin, the only fair solution is to refund the money to the people who have paid. To do otherwise would be misguided, immoral and entirely wrong.