(en) WSM - Irish Anarchist Review #11 - The Water Revolt: Ireland 2015

The campaign against the water charges is the most widespread and powerful grassroots 
movement in recent Irish history. With hundreds of local campaign groups, daily direct 
actions, and 4 national demonstrations on the order of 50,000-100,000, the cynical refrain 
that 'the Irish don't protest' has rapidly been replaced by a sense of ubiquitous 
rebellion. Irish Water is a depraved neoliberal world in effigy, embodying many of the 
worst problems of our society including the rule of international finance (and private 
greed in general) at the cost of the vast majority's well being, and the chronic 
disconnection of the populace from decision making. As such the movement has become a 
platform for opposition to austerity, the bank bailout, privatisation, the government, 
party politics, the EU, and more. Thousands of people have experienced a political 
(re-)awakening. But while it is possible that we will win this battle, and abolish Irish 
Water, this struggle represents a precious opportunity to make a grassroots offensive 
after so many years of being beaten down.

Movement Background

It certainly wasn't always obvious that the fight against the water charges would be so 
enormous. The sheer turnout of the 11th October Right2Water demonstration - not to mention 
that protesters came from all over the country - came as a surprise to most people, 
including much of the activist left. That day definitively established in people's minds 
that not only was a serious nationwide fightback possible, but that we could probably win. 
The mood was of defiance, confidence, and the joy of revolting together.

But people didn't throng Dublin's city centre out of nowhere. After the collapse of the 
CAHWT (Campaign Against Home and Water Taxes) around January 2014, crucially, a small 
number of people decided to stay active and stop the installation of water meters, for 
instance in Ballyphehane and Togher in Cork and then a few areas of north east Dublin. On 
this, Gregor Kerr, who was the secretary of the Federation of Dublin Anti-Water Charge 
Campaigns (FDAWCC) in the 1990s, opined 'I don't think it's any exaggeration to say that 
the huge protest on 11th October wouldn't have been anything like the size it was without 
the slow burn for the previous months of blockades and protests against meter 
installations spreading from community to community. And it was no coincidence either that 
many of the people involved in water meter blockades had also participated earlier in the 
summer in blockades of scab-operated bin trucks in their communities in support of the 
locked out Greyhound workers.' The initiative and hard work of these early campaigners was 
the germ of the huge movement which has burgeoned since.

This is a large part of the reason the fight against the water charges has been far more 
successful than the fight against the household and property tax was. As Mr. Kerr added 
'the fact that [the latter] was so fresh in people's memories was undoubtedly important. 
But maybe for many people it was important from the point of view of people saying 'We're 
not going to allow the same mistakes to be made again'. There is a huge contrast between 
the way the two campaigns developed. The CAHWT (the principal campaign against the 
property/household tax) was initiated by political organisations and was effectively 
strangled by some of those same parties/organisations as they jockeyed for control and 
positioned themselves to be the anti-property tax candidates in the local elections. The 
campaign involved huge numbers of working class people but never developed a grassroots 
structure, and the steering committee meetings eventually became turgid affairs mired in 
wanna be leaders lecturing everybody else. In contrast the anti-water charges campaign has 
emerged from communities and the political parties and organisations have been running 
after it trying to 'lead' it. Indeed there isn't an anti-water charge campaign, there are 
a plethora of groups organising in an ad hoc manner, some co-ordinated, some not. That's a 
huge strength. It does of course also present difficulties or challenges but they are 
outweighed by the fact that this campaign won't be as easily derailed because of the 
diversity and divergence of people and communities involved.'

Irish Water's Mission to Conserve Profit

The attempt to impose domestic water charges in Ireland is not new. In 1977 domestic rates 
were scrapped (raising VAT and income tax), but in 1983 domestic 'service charges' were 
introduced in most counties, being fought off elsewhere (e.g. Dublin, Limerick, and 
Waterford). From 1994-1997 a grassroots campaign in Dublin (FDAWCC), somewhat similar to 
the present one, repelled the water charge (which was flat, no meters were used). This 
involved a strong boycott of the bills, mass demonstrations and court protests, a 
solidarity fund for legal costs, and reversing and preventing water cut-offs. The water 
charge was then scrapped for the 26 counties. The implementation of domestic water charges 
was in the previous Fianna Fáil - Green government's Programme for Government in 2009. 
Then in 2010 it was a condition of the Troika (European Commission, European Central Bank, 
International Monetary Fund) bailout.

The purpose of Irish Water is certainly not 'safeguarding your water for your future'. 
Only the most naive would believe that the same kind of career politicians who decided to 
critically under-fund our water infrastructure over decades - so that 40-50% of supply is 
leaked and whole areas are on boil notices - are suddenly driven to make long-term 'tough 
decisions' for the good of humanity. Furthermore, these are the same politicians who are 
committed to ignoring the very present catastrophe of climate change, which not only 
threatens the volume and quality of usable water nationally, but globally. While Michael 
Noonan sermonises about leaving the tap on all night, he wouldn't dare mention that animal 
agriculture - a large component of the Irish economy - is the single most ecologically 
destructive activity on Earth, particularly because of its high methane gas emissions and 
intense water usage. That would not please the rancher farmers. Nor would Alan Kelly 
stridently denounce hydraulic fracturing, or Phil Hogan valiantly question the need to 
devour water in the production of pointless commodities for economic growth.
Indeed, Irish Water has been established to transform our water into a commodity - an 
economic object bought and sold in a market according to the direct use of a consumer - 
that will be owned and controlled by private interests.

Even former Fine Gael junior minister Fergus O'Dowd, not quite an anarcho-communist, spoke 
of being 'deeply concerned at other agendas, they may be European' and '[not knowing] 
where they are coming from' when he was involved in the foundation of Irish Water. But 
this is not peculiar to Ireland. The global pattern is that 'familiar mega-banks and 
investing powerhouses such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, Citigroup, UBS, Deutsche 
Bank, Credit Suisse ... are consolidating their control over water.' The UN has predicted 
that there will be a 40% shortfall in global water supply by 2030. In 2008, Goldman Sachs 
called water 'the petroleum for the next century'. Such corporations have been slurping up 
water utilities, reserves, and anything else related. For example, in 2012 Goldman Sachs 
bought Veolia Water which is the largest water services corporation on the planet and 
already has operations in Ireland. There are a handful of multinational corporations which 
dominate the global water market. If you can't trust supposedly accountable politicians to 
manage water services for the common good, you definitely can't trust an entirely 
unaccountable corporation to do so.

But further still, this issue is part of a political trajectory which is even older and 
goes far beyond the shores of Ireland - that is, 'neoliberalism'. Neoliberalism, in 
theory, is the idea that in order to maximise the liberty of the individual, the state 
should interfere with the personal affairs and economic transactions as little as 
possible, merely ensuring the conditions for private property to exist through 'law and 
order', and the conditions of trade by prosecuting fraud. Everything should be a commodity 
and have a price tag so that it is used in an 'efficient' manner, and all companies should 
be privately owned and operated for the same reason. Hence neoliberal capitalist policies 
include privatisation, de-regulation, removing tariffs, and austerity. However, in 
practice, neoliberalism is far messier, and really involves removing state interference in 
ways that suit the elite the most, and applying state force in ways that suit the elite 
the most (see Augusto Pinochet's neoliberal dictatorship in Chile 1973-1990).

As such, neoliberalism is radically opposed to the commons - the idea that, for instance, 
water is a human right, not a commodity, and should be available to all according to need. 
Or that land, or indeed accommodation, vehicles, clothing, and food, are held in common. 
Pleas from professional compromisers in politics and media to 'ensure' that Irish Water 
remains in public ownership are a diversion from the fact that Irish Water exists to be 
privatised. A referendum on state ownership (different to public, communal, etc, 
ownership) would merely leave the utility in the hands of the same shower who are 
currently ramming the water charges through. The time-tested method of defunding the 
infrastructure and wailing for the private sector to save us from state inefficiency would 
be applied. Not only that but EU law on commercial monopolies would require that the 
'water market' be 'opened to competition', not to mention the impending Transatlantic 
Trade and Investment Partnership. Irish Water must be abolished.

The Struggle

Resistance to the Irish Water plan has been relentless. The movement has not withered away 
as the establishment hoped or expected, even in the face of Garda repression and 
mainstream media denunciation. There is the sense that there is always some action going 
on somewhere, and that protest or dissent in general has become a sort of national 
pastime. I remember visiting a pub, after a meeting which included discussion on the water 
charges, only to see a man watching videos of water charges protests on a small 
wall-mounted screen. 'Now that's a sign of the times', I thought.

Another sign of the times is the record distrust of politicians, the judiciary, the 
Gardaí, the mainstream media, and big business. The Irish Water story has provided ample 
opportunity for various parts of the system to expose their true nature. This is 
especially true in the case of the Gardaí, who have enjoyed a reputation of being 
'peacekeepers' among much of the population. But people who have blocked water meters from 
being installed have discovered another reality. To many, the Gardaí are like an occupying 
army. There is no lesson quite like being arrested, and thanks to social media this lesson 
has been shared the length and breadth of the country. A ludicrously excessive Garda 
presence is a familiar sight to anyone following the anti-water charges movement, with 
packs of Gardaí crowding around a few meter holes as if protecting someone from murder. 
One of my favourite scenes was a meter protest in South Dublin where not only had about a 
dozen Garda cars and vans had been deployed, but also a helicopter. The Jobstown dawn 
raids, the pepper spraying of protesters in Coolock, and the jailing of the 4 injuncted 
protesters only made it harder to swallow the idea that the Gardaí and judiciary exist to 
serve the people rather than the interests of an elite.

Within the anti-water charges movement the mainstream media have come to be seen as 
couriers for government propaganda. Attendance at protests is persistently under-reported 
and the movement has been hounded by the 'has protest gone too far?' narrative (sometimes 
using outright fabrication). We have been able to subvert this by forming our own 
counter-media which has played an important role. A sprawling network of Facebook pages, 
Twitter accounts, and a host of blogs and other websites provide a means to communicate 
quickly among ourselves. With this we keep up to date on activity around the country, 
digest and react to establishment spin, discuss tactics, and more. This grassroots media 
network has given staying power to the movement, allowing protesters who would be 
otherwise isolated and forgotten to link with and inspire others.

At the heart of this movement is direct action, both in the prevention of meter 
installations and the boycott of bills. Dedication to the former has been impressive, with 
people regularly waking at 5, 6, and 7 in the morning to protest for hours on end, often 
in quite stressful circumstances. These protests can have almost military precision, 
scouting for meter contractors each day, communicating their movements via text trees. 
This is typified by, for example, Dublin's 'Flying Column' who respond rapidly to alerts 
and drive to different parts of the city, and the Cobh, Co. Cork group who even have a 
makeshift 'command and control' centre. If anything, this movement is a testament to the 
ability of so-called 'ordinary' people to figure things out themselves and organise 
effectively.

What Next?

But despite the spontaneity, ingenuity, and grassroots nature of this movement, most of 
the left are still hell bent on the tired strategy of electoralism. There is much talk of 
left alliances, broad platforms, and progressive coalitions, in other words another 
attempt at social democracy. Along with the economic crisis we have a crisis of 
imagination. Instead of advancing in the natural direction of this movement by renouncing 
parliamentary democracy as the un-democratic charade that it is, and spurring people on to 
take further power over their lives, Right2Water is encouraging us to entrust our fates in 
'progressive politicians' and is drafting its own electoral program. Considering that 
Right2Water won't back the boycott, its mobilisations are effectively election rallies, 
and that the closer the elections draw the more it will focus on them to the exclusion of 
all else, it is worth asking if Right2Water - now a sort of meta-political party - has 
outlived its purpose.

Elections are where movements go to die, demobilising people and fostering divisions. Why 
bother taking action yourself when some politicians are going to solve the problem for us? 
And who are going to do the campaigning for these anti-water charges candidates? Well, 
water protesters of course. Postering, leafleting, canvassing, organising meetings - all 
of this time, effort, and money, and hope, will be poured into what is ultimately an act 
of ritual mass delusion, rather than critical grassroots activity. We desperately require 
a fundamental transformation of society, and that cannot come from the buildings of 
parliament, it can only come from the great mass of people taking charge of their 
destinies and organising direct democratically.

There has been much talk of SYRIZA as a model for change, but far fewer know of Greece's 
network of grassroots organisations which has grown out of the movement of the squares in 
2011 and comprises hundreds of diverse projects including free medical clinics, 
alternative currencies and exchange economies, self-managed education, alternative media, 
and eco-villages. Surely this is more inspiring than a left party being elected to 
government? Clearly we are far from achieving this in Ireland, but this is the sort of 
politics we should be aspiring to. This is actually a 'new politics'. The Says No groups 
are promising in that they go beyond the single issue campaigning of strictly anti-water 
charges groups, linking up issues such as homelessness, evictions, austerity, and 
corruption. They could be the embryos of powerful community unions through which people 
can participate in a real form of democracy and organise local issues and services.

Conclusion

Even if the fight against the water charges were to end tomorrow, this struggle has caused 
significant change in this country which will have long-term effects. There are so many 
people who have become politicised and have risen up, and will not be content to go home 
and be quiet. The distrust in establishment institutions won't suddenly evaporate. We have 
gotten a taste of what real democracy involves, felt our own power, and we like it. What 
is necessary now is to press on, try to get more people involved, and get more organised. 
For instance, Alan Kelly has said that non-payers will be bundled into court, and we need 
to ensure the National Defense Fund is large enough to cover that possibility. Most of all 
we need to cling to what we have already seen to be true: this is our movement and our 
world, not a politician's, and if we want to make change we will have to take 
responsibility ourselves rather than rely on somebody else.

Words: Ferdia O'Brien

This article is from issue 11 of the Irish Anrchist Review

http://www.wsm.ie/c/water-revolt-ireland-2015