Over 30 years of anarchist writing from Ireland listed under hundreds of topics
We are winning the water war
Date: Fri, 2015-08-28 14:46
Our upcoming show of strength in Dublin on August 29th is going to be an absolutely huge gathering of people from all over the island to deliver a wholehearted 'No' to the Fine Gael/Labour government's plans to establish water charges.
"People should pay for the water they use" is a refrain we often hear from some suited up professional liar in the Dáil but it totally ignores the fact that we already pay for our water to the tune of 1.2 billion euros per year. How else would water come from our taps when we open them?
"We need infrastructure investment!" these politicians say. Yes, we do. So shouldn't the government be directing hundreds of millions of taxpayer money into repair, upgrade and maintenance work instead of setting up a company that has caused more leaks than it has fixed? Remember, when there is a water leak, Irish Water don't fix it, your local county council does.
Incidentally, did you know that two thirds of the road tax you paid at your local county council in 2014 was subvented to Irish Water?
In addition, if Irish Water is privatised in the future there is no way a profit seeking corporate entity is going to pour money into expensive maintenance and repair work. Investors in a company want to maximise the return on their investment as quickly as possible. That means jacking up the price and delivering dividends to the class of speculators and capitalists that use the world economy as their very own taxpayer insured casino.
The ultimate goal is to set up Irish Water as a viable market corporation and get people paying for water at a 'reasonable' rate at first and then increase the charges to generate a significant revenue stream to that company.
When it's built up into a nice juicy asset, it will be sold off to whichever international company has the highest political connections. Comfy directorships or other benefits in kind will be the reward for the people in government after they retire from politics. Kind of like how Fianna Fáil's Brian Cowen works for Denis O'Brien these days.
Another interesting thing to note is that what might happen is that the revenue collection aspect of Irish Water will be sold off, but the infrastructure aspect could well be left under state control. That way, the private investors get all the revenue without any of the hassle of looking after infrastructure. That's just speculation but considering that this is exactly what happened with the privatisation of Bord Gáis (the State retained the actual pipelines) it's something to factor into our thinking on this issue.
We can always rely on political parties, their billionaire benefactors, media mouthpieces and police thugs to operate against the interests of the working class. That's a given all across our fractured planet. We need to learn that If we want to have a decent country to live in, a decent world even, we need to learn how to effectively politically organise ourselves outside of the established and irredeemably corrupt political system so we can fight for a better society and a better world.