I recently attended the water protest march in Swords. there was a huge turnout and the march went of peacefully as it should.
We met in Rivervalley at the Shopping Centre and marched to the Pavillions Roundabout. We then proceeded to the County Offices where a number of speakers address the gathering.
When on the election campaign trail earlier in the year quite a large number of people were concerned about the cost of water, especially with the Local Property Tax and all the other charges and taxes that have been levied on them.
It is imperative that people are given a generous free allowance to fulfill their daily needs before any charges are levied.
The charge should be minimal and hopefully contribute to water conservation, while water falls from the sky it has to be collected,treated and delivered to homes and the network has to be maintained. If people use less water it will cost less to treat and deliver which should result in lower costs.
We already pay for water through various taxes including income tax. I believe if we are paying directly for water the income tax allowances should reflect this. I also believe the tax system is wrong and needs to be reformed, people earning less than €30,000 should be exempt from income tax.
There are a number of other ways to collect tax especially with the technology available in the present day, we just need goverments to think out side the (income tax) box and come up with solutions that will give people more of the income to take home, money that will go back into the enconomy that can can come back to the goverment in a different form rather than income tax.
More to fo;;ow.