Our leaders need to take responsibility

If the Government can be forced to climb down on the septic tank issue, surely it can also be forced to climb down on the vexed question of those hated household charges.

It is not clear which of the two issues is the most unpopular. Probably the €100 household charge because that is going to hit every householder in the country, irrespective of whether they live in urban or rural areas, whereas the septic tank charges will only affect those in rural areas. Still, there are reported to be 485,000 septic tanks in the State and that is far more than I would have guessed.
However, even Government ministers – including the Taoiseach Enda Kenny himself – have conceded that the household charge is unfair – because it is a flat charge; rich and poor – owners of big houses along with owners of small house – are all going to have to pay the same amount of money.
On the other hand, the registration of septic tanks should have been done years ago. I am with the Government on that one. This country is faced with huge fines from Europe if we do not clean up our act.
We should not have to wait for Europe, however, to tell us that we need to ensure our rivers and lakes and our drinking water is clear of pollution.
Environment Minister Phil Hogan has been sending out so many conflicting messages that people are totally confused about how much they are going to have to fork out to ensure their septic tank is in perfect working order.
People are also somewhat confused about whether their soapy water should flow into the septic tank or into a separate soak pit.
We were told originally by the Minister that a registration fee of €50 per septic tank was needed to pay for inspections. Now, we are told that inspection will not cost that much at all and that a fiver is enough.
The size of the registration fee was never the main issue. What has been causing the most anxiety was the question of how much it was going to cost people if their septic tank failed to pass the inspection. People fear they may have to pay thousands of euro in order to get their septic tanks into proper working order. Anything he may have said this week on the issue failed to allay that fear.
Their fear is understandable. People were angry enough already, what with having to pay extra taxes, charges, levies and fees on so many other items out of smaller incomes before the septic tank issue arose.
This issue should have been faced up to years ago and it would have been more acceptable when people had more money in their pocket. But previous governments avoided the issue. Pardon me for saying so, but they didn’t give a sh*** about the quality of the water until the European Union forced them into doing something.
This was another case of Irish people depending on Europe to safeguard their health through clean water – rather than depending on the Government they elected to do that.
No wonder some people are not too concerned about the further loss of sovereignty to Europe if we ratify the new European fiscal treaty.
Generations of Irish people fought and gave their lives for Irish freedom and the right to make our own laws. This was a right that was abused by our leaders who destroyed our economy. They also allowed our rivers and lakes to be polluted because they did not want to offend the polluters.
They allowed people to build dwelling houses wherever they wanted to and to ignore proper planning procedures. That, of course, is one of the reasons we are now having all this trouble about septic tanks.
I am not convinced by the minister when he says people in dire straits whose septic tanks fail inspection will be assisted by the local authorities. The local authorities have no money to spare and it is extremely doubtful they could possibly have any money to spare for this extra charge.
You cannot blame people if they do not believe anything the minister, or any member of this Government, says. They have been telling so many fairy tales that even if they told us that night follows day we would not believe them.
The row about the household charge is a separate matter. On the Government’s own admission these charges are not fair, and as such they should be resisted.
However, I strongly support the idea of domestic charges. People should pay for the amount of waste they create and for the volume of water they use. It is only fair that all of us who can afford such charges should pay for them.
It is not fair, however, that everybody should pay the same rate, whether it is €100 a year or €200 or even only €50.
Our output of waste should be measured so that we pay according to the amount we produce. The same with water charges but the water we are charged for should be clean and pollution free. Just because it was always free does not mean that it should be free in the future.
One of the problems is that we do not know how much we will be paying for our water in the future. It could be €100 but it is much more likely to be more than. We could be talking about €1,000 in a few years’ time.
That, however, is pure speculation and it will depend on how much the Government is going to charge for each unit of water we use and on how many units we actually use, just like our ESB bills.
Some of us may be glad to see the Government climb down on the septic tank issue and be hoping for a similar climbdown on the household charges.
At the end of the day, however, somebody is going to have to pay. It is only right that we keep our septic tanks in proper order. But if the Government shows weakness on this issue they are likely to show weakness when confronted with other challenges.
And we thought we were getting strong government with a large majority.