Water charges for excessive usage

PommieBast wrote: »

If that were to happen I suspect the constitution would soon get flooded with lots of stuff that ought not be in there.



The people I knew who refused to pay the water charges did not actually have anything against them per se. The actual problem was them coming on the heels of USC et al.

The people I know felt they already paid through taxation, however like your claim mine can also be filed under the heading Anecdote

It baffles me how badly water resources are managed in Ireland, always been. I'm from the Algarve where we have 6 months with no rain, still we got water, our wells don't run dry and it's possible to go to fountains and get water from them. Numerous people do this. When I moved 10 years ago I got shocked with brown water out of the tap, it's normal to drink water from the tap back home.

We do pay water charges to the council and these water charges go to maintain the water supply and the general water pipes and in most cases IT IS NOT managed by a private company but by local councils. Most cases as recent there has been a wave of semi-private companies popping up in some councils to "manage" the water.

However in general terms it's managed locally by dedicate council teams. In the Algarve there is the Águas do Algarve managed by all the city councils of the region and ensures there's drinkable water in every tap. We did in the last few years been facing bigger droughts that are stressing the system, we're talking year to 18 month without serious rain to actually fill up the dams and water resources.

So in a country with so much rain and me now living in the countryside I'm surprised there was genuine worry when there's a few weeks without rain! Or even more shocking the hosepipe bans that never, I repeat, never happened in a country where normally we'd have half a year without rain. Heck we have councils joyfully watering city gardens the whole summer

On top of that read recently that news on The Guardian on how many rivers are polluted in Ireland, which means it's hardly possible to use the rivers as water sources for the population.

All of this to say, the EU is there for many things and one of them is for each country maybe learn with other countries in how they manage their resources. There's loads Portugal has to learn with Ireland, mainly there's less bureaucracy, public works are done in a more efficient and timely way (if you think Ireland is bad, fixing a street used to take between 6 months to two years as the bureaucracy spaguetti unravelled, it's slowly getting better thankfully)

So why not look at what other countries are doing and apply it to Ireland? What is even more shocking is that these are ongoing for years and it's clear how governments are not doing anything? Literally, no one is holding FF and FG accountable for their inability at resolving crucial problems like water resources management... But the last election showed the Irish are maybe waking up and I don't think this passivity in governance will last longer.

NOTE: I'm not for SF but the fact they got the votes they got the last election shows people are really getting tired with the same kind of inane politics from the same parties. I can't vote on any of it either. Though if FF and FG want to continue to be relevant they really need to start actually acting on it... and solving the water issues in Ireland should be a priority...

I remember a poster called Godge who didn't know the difference between a plebiscite and a referendum, strangely I feel he is still with us.