Irish Government Seek to Keep Neo-Liberal Wet Dream Alive

By Dublin Eileen: Despite Concessions of Euro 100 on water tax, post Saturday’s Big Demo, I received this communication about the situation from a professional company secretary who sits on the boards of many private limited liability companies. They wish to remain anonymous.

“The whole situation with Irish Water must not be allowed to continue.  PPS numbers are not relevant and we have been told our whole lives never to give this info to anyone. Now the rules have changed so they can double tax us for the rest of our lives. They have been taxing us for water for years and never invested in the system.  Now the European political masters and their cronies want more money from us, so they have created the new funding method for water, so we can fund the multi million euro bonuses, (gym and consultant fees), and the European bank debt and bondholder bailout even further. A contract can only legally exist where the terms and conditions and payment rates have been clearly stated in advance of the customer signing the contract. As they have not told us how much they will be charging us, how can we have a contract with them? It’s the same as signing a car finance agreement and giving the finance company carte blanche to remove as much money as they see fit from our account every month. RIDICULOUS! The whole thing is a farce!”

Environmental platitudes offered by spin doctors are moot as the government are planning to penalize households who use less than the daily water quotas as are reassurances that Irish Water will not be privatized. It’s incorporation as a LTD company allows for easy privatization two years hence. Direct Democracy Ireland Waterford released this statement earlier today-

Today we see the arrogant “landlord” government’s hopeless attempts to keep their dream of privatising our water alive- by “giving €100 to many more people to help them pay the water charges”…so let’s see….if we have €500, and they take around €380 let’s say, and then give us back €100 of our own money, so they’ve taken €280 leaving us with €220, HOW EXACTLY IS THAT HELPING??? How STUPID do they think we are???? Are they dumb or deaf or just so out of touch they simply haven’t a CLUE??!?!?! ITS OUR WATER. NOT FOR SALE. NO CONTRACT NO CONSENT RETURN TO SENDER

Concerns continue about the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) re the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) with Canada. The activities of this organization and the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) seem to be linked to an ongoing whittling away of social, environmental and democratic rights. Water privatization is high on their agenda. No doubt with air and food growing legal binds to follow.

We want to prevent TTIP and CETA because they include several critical issues such as investor-state dispute settlement and rules on regulatory cooperation that pose a threat to democracy and the rule of law. We want to prevent lowering of standards concerning employment, social, environmental, privacy and consumers and the deregulation of public services (such as water) and cultural assets from being deregulated in non-transparent negotiations. The ECI (European Citizen’s Initiative) supports an alternative trade and investment policy in the EU. From 38 degrees.

Water result: Hundreds of thousands to have €100 slashed off charges after furious backlash
#NoTTIP: Mass protests slam US-EU trade deal as ‘corporate power grab’
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP)
Direct Democracy Ireland
Dublin gridlocked as 50,000 Irish protesters oppose ‘Ministry of Thirst’ water charges

Source