People Before Profit Alliance

national | bin tax / household tax / water tax | opinion/analysis Friday March 04, 2016 13:37 by Paddy Hackett

Total abolition of water charges...

The People Before Profit Alliance seeks the total abolition of water charges. To fund the provision of clean and safe water it supports the cost of this service being imposed on the capitalist class and sections of the middle class. The logic behind the position means that the total cost of all state spending should be, largely speaking, imposed on the capitalist class and sections of the middle class too.

Under these conditions the capitalist class would be left with no alternative but to withdraw its assets from the Irish economy. This would lead to the effective disappearance of the Irish economy. Consequently the income of the working class would collapse while unemployment would become widespread. Apocalyptic conditions would prevail.

Neither can the leadership of the right2water campaign support any abolition of water charges made by a future capitalist government. This is because it's abolition will result in the charge being largely imposed in a veiled form on the working and lower middle class (under general taxation or whatever). Should such support be forthcoming from the right2water leadership it will clearly expose its reactionary character. The abolition, suspension or modification of the water charges by a bourgeois government cannot be justifiably claimed to be a victory for the leadership of the Right2Water campaign.