Water charges: Siptu says Government must ‘step back’ on row

The Government could have defused widespread public anger over water charges by proposing a more far-reaching tax credit in the recent budget, Siptu president Jack O'Connor has said.

In an article published in Liberty, the union’s monthly newspaper, Mr O’Connor said the Government needed to invest in a proper water supply while retaining it under public ownership and control.

“The Government needs to take a step back on the water controversy and find a way of providing the new investment required to deliver a proper supply of treated water in a way that meets with widespread acceptance, if not approval,” he said.

He said that, while the Government had proposed a water tax credit in last week’s budget, the measure “did not go anything like far enough”.

Mr O'Connor said a more comprehensive tax credit proposal recommended by Siptu and the Irish Congress of Trade Unions several months ago would have fully offset the costs of every household's normal need for treated water.

Speaking today, Mr O’Connor described “normal need” as falling “somewhere between basic need and total usage... the amount needed for every person in every household to have a shower every day, to do their cooking, to attend to their washing and other sanitation needs”.

Mr O’Connor said a refundable tax credit would mean everyone would get the same benefit, including thousands of low-income households who will not be entitled to either a water support payment or a new water tax credit under the current budget proposals.

“By making it refundable, everyone would get the same benefit whether they were at work or dependent on welfare payments of one kind or another, and the problem of people not earning enough to qualify for the full benefit would not have arisen.

“We estimated that this could have been achieved at a cost of somewhat less than €350 million in a full year,” Mr O’Connor added.