Water charges will hit people on low incomes

Sinn Féin has promised to fight any British Government proposed water charges in the Six Counties.

And the party has vowed to raise the issue of water charges in every council chamber and in any Assembly formed after elections.

The promise came as the party launched its anti-water charge campaign at the its Sevastapool Street offices on Thursday 9 October.

Former chairman of the Assembly's Finance and Personnel Committee, Francie Molloy, said that throughout the Six Counties trade unionists, politicians and people from all sections of society oppose water charges.

He said such taxation was unfair and the British Government had failed to make the case for water charges.

"The British Government are attempting to force people who already are saddled with high energy costs, high living costs and high levels of deprivation to pay for this investment, an investment that they have consistently failed to put into water services to bring them up to international standards," he said.

"In comparison with Scotland, England and Wales, there is a deficit in direct money coming from the British Treasury of some £350 million and instead we are forced to find £10 million here or £20 million there from within our own hard pressed budget. It's time for the British Government to pay up."

Sinn Féin Chairperson Mitchel McLaughlin said that in the coming weeks the party will take its anti-water charges roadshow to towns and cities across the North.

"British Direct Rule Ministers say there is no alternative," he said. "I disagree. We need to secure the levels of investment comparable to the money they have spent on water services elsewhere and we need to ask what was wrong with the system where payment was incorporated within the rates system with its inbuilt mechanism to protect people on low incomes."