Taoiseach Leo Varadkar’s commitment to issue refunds by the autumn to householders who paid water charges is the latest chapter in a sorry saga which has discredited the entire political system. The issue will inevitably be revisited in years to come but, for the moment, households of two people or more will get a refund of €325 from the State, while one-person households will get €200. It appears those who claimed the €100 water conservation grant will not have that deducted from their refunds because of potential legal difficulties.
The conservation grant was one of the more absurd elements in the saga but there is something appropriate in the fact that law-abiding citizens who paid their charges should retain a €100 bonus from the State, as well as getting their refunds. Given the way the water charges eventually imploded in the wrangling that led to the formation of the current Government, it is only right that those who paid should get their money back, at a cost to the exchequer of €170 million.
The entire episode reflects badly on most of the parties and politicians in the Dáil. Fine Gael and Labour made a mess of introducing the charges and then discredited the system with the water conservation grant. Fianna Fáil, which actually agreed the principle of water charges with the EU/IMF troika in 2010, ultimately torpedoed the charges in a bid to jump on the populist bandwagon during last year's political stalemate. Sinn Féin and the Trotskyist left engaged in a cynical campaign to undermine a charging system for water, which the State badly needs. They won a political victory but the long-term impact on infrastructural investment will be negative.
The unfortunate taxpayer is likely to end up paying a significant price for the failure to implement a proper water-charging system when the European Commission turns its attention to the matter. The only party to emerge with honour from the entire debacle was the Green Party, which resisted the urge to join the populist clamour and stood by the "polluter pays" principle that underpinned the system.