No to Water Charges

Cllr Anthony Kelly has stated that Wexford Sinn Féin will resist any attempts to introduce water charges in this county. Cllr Kelly said the new Fine Gael/Labour coalitions plan to introduce the rates is ill thought and shows no compassion for the thousands of families in County Wexford and beyond already struggling to survive.

"I am saddened that a government that contains Labour is planning on introducing these charges at a time when Irish families simply could not possibly afford them," Cllr Kelly said. "These charges have nothing to do with the environment and are instead design to raise revenue in a completely unfair fashion. This is a regressive form of taxation which will hurt those on low incomes the most."

"Its insanity that Fine Gael and Labour plan on spending hundreds of millions of euro on installing metres in every household while at the same time we have not fixed the antiquated water system that is loosing massive amounts of water every single day. This is the kind of incompetent thinking that characterised the Fianna Fail/Green regime. Is this what we have in store for us from this new regime? Is this what those people who voted for Fine Gael and Labour hoping for change actually voted for? Sinn Féin understands that good clean water is expensive to produce and that exchequer finances are limited. That is why we support investment of progressively raised central taxation in works to eliminate wastage in the mains system and to encourage conservation at a household level.”