NI water charges: Declassified documents prove that despite its denials, Stormont privately negotiated to introduce water charges – and to sell off NI Water

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They denied it for years, but files uncovered by the Belfast Telegraph show it wasn’t British ministers who came up with the idea of water charges – it was put to them by politcal figures in Stormont Castle

Newly-declassified files show the idea of selling off NI Water and charging the public came from the Stormont Executive.

For more than two decades, Northern Ireland’s biggest parties have insisted they’ve always opposed water charges — but newly-declassified files show that the idea of selling off NI Water and charging the public came from the Stormont Executive.

Multiple documents from 2002 uncovered by the Belfast Telegraph in files opened at The National Archives in Kew show that Stormont’s private willingness to sell off the then Water Service — now NI Water — surprised Tony Blair’s chief of staff.