The more astute of you may have observed that I have a new addition on the sidebar?

Sign the petition NOW

The Right2Water crowd have not only got a petition going online but have organised a National demonstration next Saturday.

I saw a poll over the weekend.

The question was simple and unambiguous – Will you pay your water charge bill?

At the time of writing –

No: 52%

Yes: 31%

Undecided: 16%

Total votes: 23,573

The comments made interesting reading too.  There is much mention of the Siemens offer, which could have saved in the order of hundreds of millions, but where the gubmint decided to rob the National Pension Reserve Fund instead, to the tune of €450 million.  There are very few arguing in favour of the charges and those that do tend to toe the gubmint line that non-payment would lead to cuts in Social Welfare which frankly is a load of bollox.  Seeing as the income [less the vast running costs] is supposed to run the water system, then what has Social Welfare got to do with it?

So this fiasco has already cost a billion euros and they are not even off the ground yet?  Their computer system has already crashed on the first day of operation which doesn’t auger well for the future? Then there was the little incident where they posted 6,329 people’s details to the wrong addresses?  Would you hand over your personal and financial details to these people?

This is yet another example of the incredibly ham-fisted way in which our gubmint operates.  It is a total disaster and the only solution is to scrap the whole scheme.  It is unjust and is just an excuse for additional taxation, and the creation of a national asset which can be sold off to the highest foreign bidder at some time in the future.

Now if they had just spent that billion on fixing the existing infrastructure…………..