Household levy to be introduced next year-but...

jester77 wrote: »

Looks cheap, I'm paying €22 a month in Germany for water in my apt. and I'm a light user. No one home during the day, shower in the morning, dishwasher twice a week, washing machine twice a week, don't drink tea/coffee and boil maybe 3 or 4 pots of water a week for potatoes/rice/pasta/etc.

+1 I'm paying a hell of a lot more than 100 euro a year in water charges in France.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

I said it when I heard his speech about the catholic church.

He'll come out all guns blazing about corruption and sickening activities beyond his control, but he won't act fairly or correctly when it comes to stuff that he could control.

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Surely taxing the people of the country, to pay the bills of the country, whilst excluding the less well off, is acting fairly? Or does "fair" now mean, tax everyone else but not me?

Unfortunately he refuses to throw stones towards the glasshouse that is the political establishment.

He could do a lot more alright, but this government has done quite a bit already- reducing salaries, proposal to lower number of TDs, reducing expenses, ministerial cars etc. I'm not saying it's enough, but it's unfair to say that nothing has been done.

Sign in for a committee and feck off, stealing the expenses ? No problem. Enda won't kick you out of the Dáil.

Enda can't kick anyone out of the Dail. That's up to you and me.

shanered wrote: »

What do you expect, you really thought that a politician like Enda wouldn't use a crisis for political gain, while being a hypocrite and protecting his own skin and that of his work collegues?

Well, considering that this was well flagged before the election, he would have been a hypocrite for not introducing them.

Also, unless Kenny is gonna use the funds to enrich himself personally, I fail to see how this protects his own skin. If anything, an unpopular move like this will work against FG and Labour in the next elections.

It makes him look like a great moral figure with brass balls when he stood up to the church, but unfortunitly we have swapped the church for the IMF these days, instead of Rome pulling the strings it will be Brussels.

It's great that he's stood up to the Church; now he needs to stand up to those sections of Irish society who think we can spend and spend borrowed money, and never have to think of the consequences.

Now he is going to wreck the lives of so many families, and destroy the quality of life of so many children. (Disabled)

LOL, cue the melodramatics! Not just think of the children, but think of the children (DISABLED).

You sound like a bit of a hypocrite yourself to be honest. You moan about the lack of services for the poor disabled children, but then when the government seek to raise funds, which might go towards such services, you moan even more. You can't have it both ways.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

Trying to rip more money from us without fixing what's being spent first. THEN if the country needs more money we can look at making up the ACTUAL deficit.

It's pretty obvious that, even taking all the waste into account, that this country needs extra revenues. Paying for a commodity that is charged in most other nations, and which has an environmantal benefit to boot, doesn;t seem all that unreasonable to me.

If your kid was wasting cash on junk and then complaining that they didn't have enough cash, would you give them more or would you tell them to stop wasting what they had FIRST and then come back to you if they were still strapped ?

Well unfortunately, the administration of a nation of 4 million people is just a teeny bit more complex than pocket money for teenagers.

squod wrote: »

82m people in Germany. We're not short of water over here for the 5m of us.

Ah, yes we are. Do you realise how much it costs to produce potable water?

So it's €100 a year flat rate for combined property and water tax? With exemptions for low income households?


Kenny's been very reasonable.

squod wrote: »

82m people in Germany. We're not short of water over here for the 5m of us.

Dublin is, however. They run out of water every so often as well.

Liam Byrne wrote: »

"A little further" ????

The Financial Regulator was on earlier suggesting that we should give the banks more to pass on to even more greedy bosses than the current shower.

NAMA is still running, costing a fortune.

Billions are still being given to gamblers who lost their money.

TDs still claim unvouched expenses.

Sort all that first, every wasted cent, and THEN come back to us if they haven't enough to get by.

I'm pretty sure I heard the idea of increasing salaries in the banks was shot down by someone in government when questioned, I really don't know why you are so irate about this of all things. The decision on the banks was made before this government came in. You have every right to be angry about the banks etc. but it's not a reason to go bat sh*t mental about a water charge.

Monty Burnz wrote: »

It just means there will be other tax increases elsewhere. Everyone is going to get screwed, there's no point in pretending otherwise. And everyone who is hit with a tax will complain that someone else should have been taxed more. And everyone who suffers from cuts will complain that someone else should have been cut more.

It's a nightmare for the government - everything they are going to do from here on in will alienate someone. And the best they can hope for (if they do things fairly) is that they alienate everyone equally.

As far as I'm concerned, people can cry and whinge and complain all they like so long as the government takes decisive, effective action. The country's broke, and the government needs to get money from somewhere. I think the problem is people generally don't wanna know about it, want to pretend that recession doesn't affect them, only those other people.

I'm glad to see that the new blood is taking a firm stance for a change amd actually sticking to their "We can fix this, together (and that means you too)" guns.