From top: Joe O’Toole; Xavier Leflaive, Gritta Nottelman and Peter Peacock of the government’s expert commission on water charges.

“People voted a certain way, Leinster House is not prepared to grasp that particular nettle, so we have to find a solution that will have enough sugar on it to make the medicine go down easily.” Joe O’Toole on Newstalk Breakfast, June 30, 2016

Paul Murphy TD writes:

Joe O’Toole has been forced to resign as chair of the supposedly neutral expert commission not because he believed its job was to add enough sugar to make water charges, but because he gave the game away.

In his resignation statement, he declared:

“I am comfortable with the fact that I put my views honestly and transparently on the record. It is regrettable that my straight-talking has caused difficulties for others but in that regard I am unlikely to change anytime soon.”

Anybody who pays attention to politics will know that the establishment of ‘independent’ commissions to look into things is the oldest trick in the book. The aim is usually to take heat out of an issue in order to be able to return later to it.

The issue of the expert commission on water charges is no different. The government has faced a mass movement of opposition on water charges – with significant protests, a mass boycott and that reflected in the general election.

The result is a Dail where about 70% of TDs have a mandate to end water charges and abolish Irish Water.

Yet, Fine Gael in particular remains committed to bringing water charges back and Fianna Fáil is far from committed to really oppose them.

So between them, they agreed the proposal of suspension of water charges and the establishment of this water commission to ‘look into it’.

It, as Joe O’Toole let slip, has a predetermined outcome, which will be some form of water charges.

The ‘experts’ will have spoken and we will be told by large sections of the media that it is deeply irresponsible not to go along with water charges.

Who are those experts?

Well many of them are connected to water privatisation.

That includes Xavier Leflaive of the OECD who has previously written that

“Water pricing can be used to signal scarcity and to create incentives for efficient water use in all sectors (e.g. agriculture, industry, domestic)”,

Peter Peacock who is chair of the Customer Forum for Water Scotland, and Gritta Nottelman who works for a private Dutch water company.

This elevation of supposedly neutral experts is of course a part of the technocratisation of politics, what Peter Mair described as the “hollowing of western democracy”.

We have had a thorough debate on water charges over the past years. People engaged in street meetings, in mass protests, in campaigning organisations.

They then spoke – decisively, in protest, in a majority of people boycotting and in the general election.

The problem the government has is that they spoke the wrong way and therefore a way has to be found around them.

Right2Water has agreed a further major national protest on Saturday, September 17.

This will be an opportunity for a renewed call for the attempts to subvert the wishes of people to end. The so-called expert commission should go.

The bullying from the European Commission should not be heeded.

The Dáil should simply act to abolish water charges and Irish Water and provide for the necessary substantial investment in water infrastructure paid for through progressive taxation.

Paul Murphy is a TD Anti Austerity Alliance. Follow Paul on Twitter: @paulmurphy/AAA

Earlier: Glug