Clare ICMSA chairman hits out at sale of water

CLARE ICMSA chairman Martin McMahon has expressed his disbelief that Brazilian bottled water was on sale inside the Fraher Field GAA grounds in Dungarvan last Sunday, when Clare played Waterford at the venue in the opening round of the Munster senior football championship.

The ICMSA chairman maintains that the GAA should be selling exclusively Irish water at their grounds.
“We have a lot of fine plants opened up now, like our own Clare Spring Water and Ballygowan. I feel it’s undermining these plants by bringing in water from other countries. It’s not fair at a time when the economy needs all the jobs that we can create. I feel that this is undermining our Irish jobs,” Martin McMahon told The Clare Champion.
“I am surprised that this incident happened where water from other countries was brought into Ireland and given out at GAA matches,” he added.
The farmers’ body chairman didn’t accept that imported water might be cheaper than Irish bottled water and pointed to environmental reasons as to why Irish water should be prioritised.
“What about this carbon tax they’re talking about at the moment where they’re putting carbon tax on diesel here and petrol? Look at all the fossil fuels that’s being used in the transport of this water from Brazil,” he said.
“They’re saying that the money spent on this water coming in was going to help to stop the cutting down of rainforests. The rainforests are being cut down on a regular basis in Brazil in order to provide for more beef ranching in Brazil. So how can they maintain that this is going to help the environment, when we know that it has to be brought in by air or sea. It’s not helping the environment. In a matter of fact, it’s actually hindering the environment,” Martin McMahon claimed.