On Saturday October 11th upwards of 50,000 people marched through Dublin in protest at the introduction of water charges.
Brendan Ogle, a Right2Water campaigner was heavily involved in organising the protest and says that he doesn't think we shouldn't pay for water but says the point is, we already pay for water “I’ve been paying for water all my life.”
"We’re paying for water through general taxation and now the Government want us to pay the same taxation and also pay a private company which is unfair to say the least."
"The Government want to take something that’s ours, a state asset, hand it over to a private company and still expect us to pay for it.
Eamon Ryan, Leader of the Green Party says paying for water will incentivise people to conserve it, "with climate change, water is going to become a scarce resource."
He does say however, that the way the government has gone about implementing charges is wrong, "a single utility commercial entity like Irish water is the wrong way to go about this."
Listen back to the interview in full here:
