FIANNA Fáil TD for Limerick, Willie O’Dea TD, believes that the Government cannot continue to ignore the voice of the people over the Irish Water shambles.
According to Deputy O’Dea, the Government’s “disastrous” handling of the set-up of Irish Water has caused considerable public anger; evident by the thousands of people in Limerick that took to the streets in protest over the last two weekends. He now predicts that unless the Government takes people’s anger seriously and opens the door to a change of approach, the Irish Water situation is going to “spiral into an ever costlier and more divisive mess”.
“The complete lack of fairness by not including an ability to pay clause, utter confusion over allowances and millions of euro wasted on consultants has led to widespread public disillusionment,” said Deputy O’Dea.
“Every time a Government representative has spoken on Irish Water they have managed to confuse and agitate people more. Fine Gael and Labour are in disarray over Irish Water and desperate attempts to tinker around edges of the problem has turned a bad situation into a complete disaster,” he added.
The Limerick TD maintains it is now time for the Government to take responsibility for this mess, acknowledge the truth of what their colleague Fergus O’Dowd has been saying and admit they got this wrong from the very beginning.
“Irish Water was the wrong strategy from day one, dreamed up in opposition by a Fine Gael party enthralled by the privatised water utility model in Britain. The Government started with the wrong plan and went downhill from there,” O’Dea claims.
