Water shortages across much of the country this summer have highlighted one of the big failures of our political leaders \u2013 the inability to implement a system of water charges that will get people to pay attention to the quantity of water they use in their everyday lives.<\/p>\n
If the warm, dry summer of 2026<\/a> is a harbinger of things to come then acute water shortages will become a feature of life, particularly for people living in the east of the country which is significantly drier than the west.<\/p>\n The current system of unlimited free public water for all households is unsustainable in the long term and is unfair to boot. Monitored consumption through domestic meters, installed but not used for charging consumers, shows that 10 per cent of households account for more than 35 per cent<\/a> of domestic water consumption.<\/p>\n Some of that imbalance is undoubtedly due to leaks, but it is also due to wasteful consumption by careless consumers or those who are wealthy enough to have every bedroom en suite or a swimming pool filled with free water in the back garden. <\/p>\n Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a> has deservedly won plaudits for his surefooted handling of the Taoiseach\u2019s office, but 10 years ago he \u2013 and his likely successor Jim O\u2019Callaghan<\/a> \u2013 sabotaged the development of a comprehensive system of domestic water charges. The real tragedy is that they did so just when it was beginning to work, after years of protest and disruption<\/a> stirred up by the far left. <\/p>\n A national water metering system was introduced by then minister for the environment Phil Hogan<\/a> in 2012 at the behest of the EU\/IMF troika, which was supervising the country\u2019s bailout after the financial crash. Water charges and a property tax<\/a> were deemed essential to ensure the Irish tax base would not be as exposed to another meltdown.<\/p>\n After a shaky start, the property tax became an accepted feature of life once its collection was taken over by the Revenue Commissioners. Hogan also set up Irish Water (now Uisce \u00c9ireann<\/a>) to put the provision of public water on a sound footing. A national system of metered charging for water was part of that plan.<\/p>\n A political campaign, initiated by the Trotskyist left and joined by Sinn F\u00e9in<\/a>, became a real problem for the government. Protests and disruption of the metering work became a feature of political life. Yet by the time of the 2016 general election, about 60 per cent of households were paying the charges and another 20 per cent were exempt. It meant that about 20 per cent of households were still refusing to pay.<\/p>\n The 2016 general election happened just when the plan was on the verge of success. The resulting political stalemate saw Enda Kenny<\/a> eventually managing to put a Fine Gael<\/a>-led government in place with the backing of Fianna F\u00e1il<\/a>.<\/p>\n