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They haven't gone away you know: water charges. Ireland's dystopia: incomes up, poverty down, inequality down. Truths that can never be told.
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They haven't gone away you know: water charges. Ireland's dystopia: incomes up, poverty down, inequality down. Truths that can never be told.
I’m mega surprised that the Greens did not raise the Water Charges
Really if it was done in a reasonable fair manner - there should not be a problem
E.g.
Provide an allowance per person and once for the premises
Person = from baby to old age - gets sane allowance
Premises gets split to private home - small (Small - under 80 sq m, medium under 150 Sq m, large - over 150 sq m)
Commercial and public premises can have allocations too and even variations if in use only on occasion (eg stadium, conf centres, hotels)
Each connect has a small annual fee (30-50€) only pay when go over calc allowance per month
But
If household feels there is a leak - Irish water Must do the investigation at zero cost to householder & gives estimate to fix. The householder should only have to pay if their action caused the leak (eg dug a hole, spilled corrosive material etc)
That will satisfy the Greens, conserve our water, make people respect its use and the fact that there is infrastructure to be maintained
And will aid in out EU promises!!
With regard to water charges being a plumber I see so much waste, at the time of the introduction of water charges I saw an increase in supply of water butts for gardening and when when the charges were scrapped interest in water butts fell off a cliff.
Unfortunately we Irish people I feel have to be beat with a stick beat (water tax) to make changes rather than change for the good of the environment.
Great podcast as usual
Lads, love the podcast but yous need to be more optimistic. Health and housing are fixable. Post war Britain, 60-70s Sweden and modern day Austria, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea have very interesting/effective housing policies. On Health, doctors have much better productivity in South Korea (X4 the number of consultations per doctor per year)https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/c2a1fdc8-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/c2a1fdc8-en. It's possible to incentivize people to do work!