In this article Enda Craig reponds to Deputy Paul Murphy’s , short but altogether, unsatisfactory explanation on facebook yesterday that Solidarity did not support the removal of the 9.4 Exemption from the Oireachtas Water Committee’s report.
by Enda Craig
Deputy Murphy’s response together with the lack of a credible explanation from those who we were led to believe were the ‘good guys’ like Solidarity, People Before Profit, Sinn Féin and Independents, to my serious accusations in Buncrana Together, When the Dust Settles where I accused representatives of doing deals in the Oireachtas Water Committee and selling out the anti water charges movement, brings up thoughts of just what these Irish politicians mean when they talk about ‘Peoples’ Power’, ‘Mass Movement’ or ‘Grass Roots’.
When it comes to platitudes from the left in Ireland be it Solidarity, PBP or those in the somewhat more hazy left or right category, Sinn Féin, it baffles me what they mean. Especially when I believe that the ‘grass roots’ are looking for some honest answers. After all when it comes to people's power, honesty and information is the key.
You know, to my mind, this is not far away from the bromide one hears, all too often, from the mainstream parties such as Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil when they say they are working hard on behalf of the nation, or constituents or to quote an often Sinn Féin cliché, ‘we have a mandate’. Euphemisms like these are really for keeping the masses in the dark, clichés to give people the impressing that their opinions count and platitudes to hide what they really want or are doing, like the opposite, acting in their own self interest. But the masses, so long as they are controlled, are needed every so often to march up and down O’Connell Street or every four years at election time. It is condescending.
Murphy’s reply
″Solidarity did not support the removal of the reference to 9.4 in the Water committee report. We opposed the Water Committee report for various reasons, including the charging for 'excessive use' and the retention of Irish Water as a commercial entity. Our position was well explained on the Committee and in the ongoing Dáil debate on the legislation. Regardless of the legal situation, we believe that if people organise to oppose the imposition of charges in the future, it can be defeated and the law turned into a dead letter, just as it has been for the last 3 years″
This is an answer Sinn Féin could just as easily come up with. Even Fianna Fáil on the face of it were against Irish Water and Water Charges but behind the scenes both conjured up ‘excessive charges’, metering and the establishment of Irish Water.
What Mr Murphy or indeed any of the Right2Water TDs did not answer was to explain in detail why subsequent to the Oireachtas Committee debate on January 15th, 2017, in which two Senior Councils advocated the retention of the 9.4 Irish Domestic Water Exemption, that no mention of this can be found in any report, especially the ‘Confidential Draft Final Report’.
This is the report Solidary and R2W TDs fully accepted and supported when Deputies Paul Murphy, Richard Boyd-Barrett, Brid Smith and Mich Barry spoke on video on the night of April 5th 2017 when they rushed to be the first to announce to the world a ‘victory’ for the Anti-Water Charges campaign.
Solidarity and People Before Profit speaking outside Dáil April 5th 2017
Mr Murphy might care to explain his enthusiastic comments on the video that ‘there will be no excessive usage charge’. I would think we deserve an answer to that especially in light of their failure to explain Sinn Féin’s behind the scenes deals with regard to ‘Excessive Charges’’ or indeed Right2Water Unions agreeing with them in the Oireachtas Committee.
In relation to his comment that″Solidarity did not support the removal of the reference to the 9.4 Exemption in the committee’s report″, I am not aware of anyone making that specific accusation. My contention was that the 9.4 was never included in the report in the first place and no one complained about it. An altogether serious reality.
I would like Mr Murphy to show me detailed evidence that he fought tooth and nail, subsequent to the legal debate on January 15th , to have the 9.4 Exemption included in any Committee report. A bland statement like ″our position was well explained on the Committee and in the ongoing Dáil debate on the legislation″ does nothing to clarify his actions in relation to accepting a report with proposed progressive charges in the place of the 9.4 Exemption. The details of his attempts to retain the 9.4 and to have it included in the committee’s report are now required to justify his so far unsubstantiated claims that he did fight for them. Murphy’s claim regarding his position to the 9.4 is not documented anywhere, as far as I am aware. I would like to be proved wrong.
Just to be precise the time-frame I am referring to is subsequent to the January15th session and up to when the Committee’s Confidential Final Report was published on the 5th of April.
I spoke to the Oireachtas Committee secretary, Mr Thomas Sheridan, on the phone and his reply was confirmed in writing to Michael Mooney that after each session the Committee members would meet in private session and decide and agree which parts of that session would be included in the Oireachtas Committee report.
The most critical of all decision to drop the 9.4 Exemption and any mention of the January 15 debate and replace it with 'progressive charges' was made at that point. It is not unreasonable to think that if there was a deal done behind their backs, Mr Murphy or any of the R2W TDs should have raised hell at that point. They should have explained to the anti water movement what was happening during all those private sessions. And they should now explain why the 9.4 Exemption to water charges was left out of any report. After all how can you have an 'Exemption to Water Charges' and all that it entails and what we now have 'progressive water charges' at the same time. That is a contradiction.