Clouds of suspicion over omission of 9.4 Exemption in Oireachtas Water Committee report

by Enda Craig and James Quigley

Oireachtas report omits any mention of crucial European Law session

In this article we will again return to the question of Ireland’s 9.4 Exemption, the River Basin Management Plans and their inexplicable omission in the draft or final report of the Oireachtas Committee on Funding Domestic Water when it concluded business in April 2017.

Anyone not acquainted with the importance of the above topics can read our article Michael Noonan 'Water Charges Required Under European Law' is a Lie or listen to the 30 mins video below or read the excellent legal opinions by Irish Senior Counsels, Conleth Bradley and Matthias Kelly, who, by the way, were invited to present submissions to the Committee by Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin, respectively.

This article zones in on the Oireachtas Committee on the Future Funding of Domestic Water debate on the 15th February, 2017.   We draw your attention to the fact that the subject of the debate i.e the 9.4 Exemption and the River Basin Management Plans are of the utmost importance to the anti water charges’ campaign, that the debate lasted for a complete session and it somehow never got included in the final draft report or the subsequent final report of the committee.  This final report was passed by the Dáil on the 13th April 2017 and will form the basis of any future legislation.

Report procedures and inconsistency

It could be the case that‘it’s the way they do business down in Dáil’,  as we were informed by a R2W TDs on the Oireachtas Committee, however, as ordinary citizens, we can only take the explanation found on the Oireachtas website itself at face value where it says

″ On an ongoing basis Committees publish reports based on the meetings and hearings they have held″.

Ordinary citizens would instinctively know that any chairperson would include in their report such important matters that were debated for a complete session, especially one with top opinions from senior counsel. 

However, this was not the case here.  One would think that the Committee members, those opposing water charging,  including Fianna Fáil and Sinn Féin,  would be up in arms over such an omission, especially since they were responsible for inviting legal submissions in the first place.

Significantly, there wasn't even a whimper after the draft report was presented to the committee member on the 5th April, 2017, (sans any hint of 9.4 Exemption or the RBMP).

 

Understanding the sequence of events for reports

Pádraig ÓCéidigh, Chairman

After all the meetings of the Oireachtas Committee had ended, it was up to the chairman Pádraig ÓCéidigh and his team to furnish a " confidential draft report". This report should have included and reflected the various topics that had been discussed during the committee’s private and public sessions. This procedure allows committee members to scrutinise the contents and then agree or not to a final report.

In this case a draft report was duly compiled and circulated to each committee member on the 5th April, 2017. After reading that report it would have immediately been obvious that any mention of one of the most important sessions, namely, the 9.4 Exemption and the River Basin Management Plans was not included.

Now would that not raise alarm bells?

If the R2W members or for that matter Fianna Fáil members had been genuinely fighting for the 9.4 Exemption as they professed during the 15th February session , they would have immediately taken steps to remedy the situation and insist that the draft report be rewritten to include the vital information.

This did not happen and as we have witnessed, when the draft report (without 9.4 Exemption) was circulated, unbelievably, Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd-Barrett, Mick Barry and Brid Smith headed for the media and claimed a great victory. This was followed the next day by a crowd of R2W TDs who again claimed exactly the same 'victory'.  Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael then rejigged a few words in the draft report during the following week and came up with a final report that again never mentioned the 9.4 Exemption or the River Basin Management Plan.

What are we to make of it

Flabbergasted at the short shortsightedness, appalled at the double-cross and wonder at why the wastefulness of the elaborate legal opinions especially in defense of the 9.4 Exemption. 

However,  such is our paranoia, we can not rule out that Ó Céidigh did include the February session, as per protocol, but for some reason it was removed by agreement of the Oireachtas members. Such was the secrecy of some parts of the committee sessions and the scarcity of information about what was going on especially from R2W that we are really at a disadvantage.

If we take it that Ó Céidigh and his team omitted the February session, then we might look at that as grounds for calling for a mismanagement of committee protocol and ask for the final report to be deemed null and void. 

Another aspect of members not objecting or saying anything is how can R2W hold Fianna Fáil, or vice versa,  accountable if neither objected to the omission or worse colluded in it.

That is depressing enough but what is worse is the lack of any credible answers from R2W, Sinn Féin, Fianna Fáil and the Left despite being asked.

One response we came across is worthy of a mention though. That can be found in an unaccredited Right2Water Ireland revisionary article where, in relation to the ‘victory’ claim, it referred to R2W Oireachtas members as ‘Naive’.

Now if there is one description we would never use to describe Sinn Féin, it would not be ‘naive’. More like seasoned, wily, cunning, ruthless establishment politicians, cut from the same cloth as the rest down in the Dáil..

 

30 mins extract from the Oireachtas Committee on Future Funding of Water in Ireland - full debate here: https://oireachtas.heanet.ie/mp4/cr4/latest/cr4_20170215.mp4

Brendan Ogle's upcoming talk in Donegal. Is it a coincidence or inquisition?

By James Quigley - on Brendan Ogle's upcoming talk in Donegal.

Donegal Daily July 26 2017

 

This is an exercise more like the same old controlled opposition that we have experienced for years, propaganda from unelected and self appointed leaders trying to kick-start what has been shown to be a power grab for political and personal reasons.

It is too much of a coincidence that Brendan Ogle decides to come, to the wilds of Donegal from Dublin in the midst of a R2W community revolt, a grassroots revolution trying to take back power from trade unions, political parties and personal agendas .

It seems more like a witchhunt and the Witchfinder General will come and breathe fire and brimstone on the dissident people who dared voice their opposition and opinions. He will also try to instill and bolster up the determination of his followers. It is a cynical exercise organised by undemocratic, corrupt R2W Ireland leadership in Donegal egged on by the undemocratic national leadership. After all they have done to control and mismanage a magnificent national campaign, how else can we look at it?

Now the excuse is that they did the best they could, that they had only 5 TDs on the controlled Oireachtas Committee and as such could not control the outcome. After the horse has bolted with not a word in the final draft report from that committee about the River Basin Management Plan and the 9.4 Exemption, after not a single criticism from the 5 TDs, after the shout of victory and Mr Ogle rejoicing about the outcome, now this psychopathic R2W Ireland leadership’ (never admit wrong), is latching on to the 9.4 and the RBMP for all it’s worth and unashamedly putting the onus on us to do what they should have done months if not years ago. March down the same old road again only for them to take the credit again.

I can recall Enda Craig last year writing a lot about the 9.4 Exemption in Buncrana Together. He even ventured on to R2W’s main website and the local ones in Donegal to ask them why they were not doing anything to highlight it. He got short shrift, nothing but abuse. Now they are all over it and trying to say they have been at it for years.

This exercise is the same old propaganda, modus operandi, hoodwink,  designed to keep the assumed leaders in power or protect their jobs for years to come whether union or political, a permanent opposition.  When all else fails blame the failure on the dissidents or that other Republican party Fianna Fáil.  It’s a bit like Northern Ireland, where Sinn Féin has attained a permanent opposition status with a sure call for a United Ireland.  Having agreed to the Good Friday Agreement they can safely say that their jobs are good for maybe 20 years.  Or the European Union that’s another good hunting ground.

Thank god I don’t have to go the talk show and listen to a tirade from someone who hoodwinked and controlled the water campaign, called for water charges, accepted metering, Irish Water Ltd and supported a minority Fianna Fáil Government. All while he said the opposite and getting paid to boot.

I would like to say ‘we haven’t gone away’. We will support the dissidents who seek democracy, truth and justice, community power.  We have witnessed our power so Mr Ogle and all political parties beware.

 

 

 

Right2Water site should not be used to promote “fake news” in UNITE election

This article is from www.socialistdemocracy.org/  published on 10 April 2017.  It concerns how Right2Water Ireland's official site is used for 'Fake News'  by unnamed authors and noright of reply.

 

 

An article has appeared on the Right2Water site from a Unite official in Ireland stating; “Let’s be clear, without the support of Len McCluskey, there would be no Right2Water or Right2Change.” The author here is not giving due credit to the many Unite members who tramped the streets and blocked access to communities as part of the great mass of water protesters and who did play an important practical role in the movement.

Instead the credit for a determined struggle, in which victory is not quite yet achieved, has been snatched from the people that faced down the goons on their own doorstep and handed to the leader of a British trade union.  This is an absolutely shameless piece of biased electioneering in the Unite leadership contest. Worse still, it is clear that official involved considers the Right2Water site his own private playpen. There is no open access to the site and no right of reply.  Supporters of Right2Water are not being invited to discuss, but used as targets for "fake news" in a titled election.

This eclipsing of the role of the people who were the real backbone of the water protests entirely mirrors the election taking place in Unite.  It summarises perfectly the trade union leadership's attitude to its own rank and file membership.  By presenting these laurels to McCluskey the author ignores one of the candidates completely, Ian Allinson, failing to even mention his name. 

Allinson was a member of the Unite NEC for 10 years and, unlike the others, is in full time employment outside the union. He is a workplace activist who has effectively unionised a traditionally hard to organise sector at Fujitsu UK and has been on strike and on the picket line during the election nomination and campaigning period. He has to apply to his employer for leave from work to campaign and does not have the vast resources that is at the disposal of McCluskey and the reactionary right winger Coyne.  In spite of this difficulty his supporters ensured he was on the ballot.

As with the previous leadership challenge of Jerry Hicks, Ian Allinson has had to rely on a network of rank and file trade unionists and supporters and appeal for funds to produce leaflets and information on his candidacy.  Despite the obvious difficulties the Hicks campaign achieved second in the last election.  Allinson hopes to emulate this record, and make his rank and file driven campaign a viable left opposition to McCluskey and the potential basis for a rejuvenated trade union movement that reflects the needs of its membership. 

Allinson, like the anti water charge protesters, is part of the real struggles of working classpeople.  He is from the shop floor and this connects him with those struggles in a way the others cannot match.  Yet this does not merit a mention on the R2W article.  Just as the author writes the people who struggled against the water charges out of history he also erases the candidacy of the only rank and file candidate in the election.

This should not be allowed to pass. The leadership's condescending attitude to the mass of the protesters is a reason why the anti water charges campaign needs to be democratised. Only by drawing in representatives from local activist groups and communities and rank and file trade unionists can the threat to privatise water be conclusively ended.  Through such a process the campaign can also begin to address health, education, transport and all the issues generated by austerity which face the Irish working class.  For the the same democratic reasons Unite members in Ireland should vote for Ian Allinson and a union that is driven by the interests of its rank and file members. 

More information on the Allinson campaign at; 
http://www.ian4unite.org/wont-allinson-split-the-vote/