Like other Deputies, every day I get phone calls from families at their wits' end. As they calculate their water charge bill, they are trying to come to terms with the scale of pain the Tánaiste's Government is inflicting on them. Some people will pay this charge but they will do so resentfully. Others will refuse to pay, but a huge number of families simply cannot pay. They do not have the money. Some are families on social welfare; others are working families on low wages.

They have no disposable income at the end of the month. Now the Government expects them to pay hundreds of euro a year for the basic necessity of water. The Government is threatening these families, saying their water supply will be cut off if they cannot meet this bill. The Government seems prepared to deny these families the ability to wash their children or their sick parents, to clean or to cook. Why are the Tánaiste and the Labour Party threatening families who cannot afford to pay this charge?

Why, in the document it published yesterday, is Sinn Féin threatening the very same families who may inherit a modest family home worth between €250,000 and €300,000, with €48,000, another mortgage, which they will have to take out in order to inherit their family home? Will Sinn Féin please get real on the kind of pain it has outlined for ordinary hard-working families yesterday in its document? I have repeatedly said, and am happy to say again, that the Commissioner for Energy Regulation has set out an 8% reduction, €180 million, to be achieved by Irish Water in its cost base before the end of 2016.

Sinn Féin proposes in its document that Irish Water be converted into a new quango called a non-commercial semi-State. It will not be able to raise funds for the absolutely vital infrastructure the families the Deputy talks about will need. They will need it to get rid of lead pipes and boil notices, for water quality. I know this is not a Sinn Féin priority but they will need it to invest in industry coming into this country so that their children can have jobs. According to the Sinn Féin document, it wants their children to be on social welfare.

That is rubbish.

We have set out a structure in which families will have to pay over the next two years, at a maximum, the assessed charges. In addition, in the budget there will be, for family households, which are by and large the most vulnerable households, a water services support payment of €100 per annum. That will go a significant way towards meeting and defraying the cost of water charges for many of the families about which the Deputy is understandably concerned.

If one travels 100 miles north, one finds that Sinn Féin has no problem with families paying an average, to include water, admittedly, of €950 on modest two and three bedroom houses in estates very similar to the estates here.

The Deputy’s arguments do not add up. Sinn Féin cannot cripple Irish Water by preventing it from raising funds on the international market to address the severe deficiencies and environmental and health issues arising from the way water has been dealt with in this country. Instead it will push those costs onto the taxpayer. It will cost the taxpayer approximately €500 million to do what Sinn Féin proposes in its document.

As we know from the difficult years after the bank and construction industries collapsed, everybody in this society, on low and high incomes, will have to pay the costs of the outline of the new Irish Water quango non-commercial State company for which Sinn Féin has flown the flag.

And the bonuses.

We would need to go back to the 1920s or 1930s to find the kind of structure Sinn Féin flew the flag for yesterday.

Maybe it would fix a leak for a change.

Is Deputy Ellis paying his bin charges?

Once again and unsurprisingly, the Tánaiste refused to answer a very simple question. She comes in here week after week and abuses Leaders’ Questions and refuses to give straight answers. Maybe she is incapable of giving a straight answer.

Did the Deputy practise that answer with her advisers beforehand? She must have been working on that for hours.

Let me give an example of an individual who came to my office: he is out of work, his rent allowance has been cut, he is barely struggling by just now.

The Deputy wants to keep him angry.

Like the Minister of State before the last election. He was Mr. Angry in Dublin North Central.

He produced the envelope and said "This is the end of me". Why is the Government threatening people like this man and so many others that if they do not meet this bill, it will cut off their water supply?

Why did Sinn Féin change its position on water?

How does the Tánaiste stand over that position as leader of the Labour Party? People cannot pay. What happens to those people? The Government cuts off their water supply, a basic necessity.

We do not. It is not allowed by law.

The Deputy has no clue.

Why did Sinn Féin change its position on water?

The Tánaiste threatens and harangues them and will not answer the straight question here in the Dáil Chamber. Shame on the Tánaiste. She ought to be ashamed of taking that position in government, as should her colleagues on the Labour Party benches.

When did Sinn Féin change its position on water?

At least the Fianna Fáil questions are reasonable.

I understand that the Sinn Féin leader has two or three houses, maybe even four. I would not know.

That is right. The Tánaiste would not know.

He has one in Donegal anyway.

In respect of the gentleman Deputy McDonald mentioned, I do not know what age he is; she might indicate that. He has been out of work for a while and obviously wants to try to improve his situation. Could the Deputy please ask him to contact the local Intreo office if he is in Cabra or Finglas? We will help him.

Like thousands of others.

The Government took the money away in the first place.

The Deputy should not shake her head at the idea that somebody would go back to education, to work or community employment. The last I heard, Sinn Féin by and large supports community employment.

If the Deputy wants to improve his situation, the first thing to do, depending on the age of the gentleman, is to try to help as a society to get that man, who probably lost his job through no fault of his own, back to work.

The opinion poll is going to the Tánaiste’s head.

The second point is the big Sinn Féin lie. It prepared the propaganda and has worked this one out. Nobody’s water supply is going to be cut off because the law does not allow Irish Water to cut off people’s water.

Did the Deputy hear that?

It will turn it down to a trickle.

The Tánaiste can say it again and again.

Sinn Féin can rip up its leaflets.

Repeat after me.

The law in Ireland does not allow the man’s water to be cut off. The Deputy said the man is financially challenged. I accept that. I absolutely accept that the poor man probably lost his job through no fault of his own. Sinn Féin as a party, and Deputy McDonald as a public representative, would get a lot of profit for that man and his family, if he has one, or for him alone, by helping him back into education or into community employment-----

He cannot pay this bill.

The Government is making him pay the bill.

We are going to be protesting then.

The Tánaiste is in government.

He cannot pay his bill.

The Deputy wants to keep him angry.

Can the Deputy not help him get back into education, or back to work? Why would she not do that? Sinn Féin is anti people getting work, or advancing. That is the problem.

Would Members allow the person asking the question the courtesy of silence please and allow the person responding the courtesy of silence? Would they try to keep their mouths shut for a few minutes?