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INFORMATION GIVEN TO government TDs and senators in relation to Irish Water needs to be clearer after considerable confusion over access to the €100 grant earlier this week, a government backbencher has said.
Andrew Doyle, a Fine Gael TD for Wicklow, made the call after he was left with the impression, repeated on national television, that those who did not register with Irish Water by Monday’s midnight deadline would NOT qualify for the €100 water conservation grant.
The €100 grant is being provided to offset the cost of water charges and is due to be paid to households in the autumn.
Monday’s deadline, that turned out not be a definitive deadline for registration, caused confusion in some quarters, primarily because of the information that was being given out on the airwaves.
For example, on Monday’s Morning Ireland, Labour senator Lorraine Higgins spoke of “possible penalties” for not registering before the deadline, before admitting there’s “no clarity” on what those penalties will be.
The situation appeared to be confused further by Irish Water’s Elizabeth Arnett telling Today with Seán O’Rourke later that morning that despite there being no penalties “unless your details have been confirmed with us you won’t be able to apply to the Department of Social Protection for that grant”.
“So, it’s not that there a penalty it’s just that you will actually miss out if you haven’t confirmed your details,” she said when asked by O’Rourke about possible penalties for not registering.
Arnett was not date specific in her answer regarding whether not registering by the midnight deadline meant you would not qualify for the €100 grant.
Subsequent briefing notes prepared for TDs’ media appearances summarised that specific part of her interview as follows:
- There are NO penalties for not meeting today’s registration deadline
- IF you do not register there will be an assumption that you are on a standard charge, even if you are on the lower rate
- Re €100 conservation grant, if your details are not registered you cannot receive the grant.
- So it is in the interests of people to register their details.
On RTÉ’s News at One that same Monday afternoon, Environment Minister Alan Kelly responded to questions about the grant by saying it was necessary to register with Irish Water, but then intimated that the deadline for the grant would be at a “later date in the summer”.
“If you’re going to get the water conservation grant of €100 you will have to register with Irish Water and that will be a necessity to do so – at a later date in the summer there will be an administrative deadline in relation to that.”
Then on Monday night, Doyle appeared on Tonight with Vincent Browne on a panel alongside the Irish Independent’s Colette Browne, Fianna Fáil senator Thomas Byrne and TheJournal.ie‘s Hugh O’Connell.
During the course of a discussion on the Irish Water deadline (22 minutes 45 seconds in) Doyle said that “anyone who doesn’t sign up tonight doesn’t qualify for the water conservation grant”.
It was immediately pointed out by the other panellists that Doyle was wrong on this crucial piece of information.
He responded: “The information I have is that actually if you wanted to be guaranteed you’re going to qualify for the 100 euro you have to register tonight.”
Doyle was visibly annoyed after the programme. He later told TheJournal.ie: “I was definitely unhappy that I seemed to be given the wrong impression about the water conservation grant.”
“The rules seem to have been subtly changed and I wasn’t clear about it on the night. My understanding all along was what I said on Monday night – that the grant was not payable if you did not register by midnight.”
Higgins declined to comment on the way in which she’d been briefed.
But Doyle said that: “The Department needs to be clearer. I’m not blaming our own press office [Fine Gael]. But the Department needs to be clearer in the dissemination of information.”
A Department of Environment spokesperson insisted again yesterday that Monday’s deadline was “an administrative deadline, as the minister said”.
They said: “There’s no closing date in relation to applications for the water conservation grant. There will be later in the year, probably sometime in the summer.”
So, just in case you’re not clear if you didn’t register for Irish Water by the Monday deadline you have not missed out on the €100 conservation grant.
Or as the Department of Environment spokesperson insisted: “Nobody has missed out on anything.”
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People aren’t going to stop taking them, on-site testing facilities would be a forward thinking solution.
@Gav Brosnan: natural selection would be another. Just because society won’t make it legal doesn’t absolve you of responsibility. Ingest unknown substances!! More fool you.
@SFLounyTouny: Gav is advocating a solution to the unknown substances problem.
Would you actually not support safety initiatives for people to test pills but you’d rather say I told you so to the 0.0001% of people who ever have an issue with them?
@SFLounyTouny: yeah I agree, its not smart to take stuff you that you don’t know the contents and source of but people will still do it, a lot of people. Just because its stupid doesn’t mean it wont happen. The risks can always be lessened.
@Gav Brosnan: the risk can be lessened!! The risk can be eliminated completely..dont take them.
@SFLounyTouny: oh that’s that sorted so. Hope everyone caught that.
@SFLounyTouny: you clearly don’t live in the real world.
@Gav Brosnan: yes I do…take unknown substances and risk death..don’t take unknown substance and no risk of death..quite simple.
@sftonylouny
Get in your car risk death, don’t get in your car don’t risk death.
I have to say this is absolutely sound advice from the HSE and it’s good to see a sensible approach taken for once. Obviously the clear message is don’t take drugs but the advice given is 100% correct and relevant. It could save a life
@Coco86: a pill testing station would also help
@John Longmore: Agreed. Might actually turn people off if you new exactly what was in it.
@John Longmore: i believe the legal situation wouldn’t allow them to be handed back, so fairly pointless at the minute
@Coco86: Agreed, it’s good to see them coming around to the type of practical advice that club magazines provided in the 90s. It’s a lonnnnng time since I touched anything but good advice still applies.
2 weeks between sessions seems a little unrealistic for most heads though. And its better to test the batch before, or talk to your friends, as you’re unlikely to show discipline at the start of a session when you’re hyped up. Most people wouldn’t knowingly bring speckled pills to a festival as a sizeable number of folks don’t like tripping or are not cut out for it in large crowds of people they don’t know.
@Julian Friesel: Just give one keep the rest :)
@Rónán O’Suilleabháin: The thoughts of e’s make me gag now man absolutely putrid rotten yokes! But back in the day I did my fair share and looking back now I’m lucky to have made it through those mad teenage early 20′s years! But we all know the risks albeit understand them that bit better as you get older. Hopefully everyone enjoys this year’s festivals and gets home safe,
Don’t take them is also good advice.
@Jalbeardzi, Yup and if you dont, just take a little bit seen how you feel in an hour before you escalate
@Clever Jake: because it is legal, if it was illegal it wouldn’t measure in the list of most deadly drugs.
Let’s hope the yes side come out in as much force on this issue, “women take abortion pills let’s make it safe for them” people take recreational drugs let’s make it safe for them. Legalise and regulate from manufacture to consumer
@Colm Kiernan: we need the Citizens Assembly to get involved here. Where’s Noone when we need her? Probably still hungover from the rave at the castle. #Trustdrugdealers
Perhaps enforcing drug laws would be a start
@Steve1234: They clearly don’t work
@Coco86: They’re not enforced. People used to drink and drive regularly until it was treated seriously and now a lot less people do it as there is more chance of being caught. If the same approach was taken to drugs it would have the same results
@Steve1234: Evidence from every country that has tried this shows it doesn’t work. All you end up with is prisons filled with decent people for minor drug offences.
@Steve1234: Of course they are enforced, have you ever witnessed anybody taking lines off the bar having a pint? No, because it’s illegal people will use the toilets instead! If anything I would say they are enforced too much and you must admit the so called war on drugs is being catastrophically lost. I agree with you on your drink driving comparison but this is not the right approach here IMO. Why criminalise the person with 20 euro worth of MDMA in their pocket when the real problem is at the top of the chain making millions? There will always be a demand for drugs so provide safe substances and make those on top irrelevant
Traditional party drugs like MDMA are quite safe substances, certainly no more dangerous than alcohol and likely safer. Where the danger arises is with adulterated substances, toxic derivatives or substances passed off as something they’re not. This is a result of prohibition and the black market drug trade. If alcohol were illegal, you would see deaths due to methanol poisoning from home brews as is common now in many Islamic countries where alcohol is prohibited. The substances we know to be relatively safe from clinical studies (MDMA, LSD, psilocybin, cannabis etc.) should be regulated and allowed to be openly sold as alcohol is. Dangerous derivatives and the like should still be banned.
Lesson number 1. Know you’re dealer.
@Dj: lesson number 2 “you’re” means “you are”
@Dj: Absolutely I am… You either do it, or you lie and say you don’t do it
@Dj: Question is does your dealer know their dealer and so on. The MDMA or pills the user consumes has passed through so many hands! The best thing is to listen to the advice given above and enjoy yourself, and the buzz!
@Coco86: Well, if you’ve been buying off a dealer for a period of time and it’s good stuff then I don’t see the need to buy some crap off some shifty looking bloke in the public toilets. Just come prepared is all.
@Dj: That’s true I’d sooner go without than risk some filthy crap from a randomer, you seem to think likewise :)
Unfortunately though I would think a lot of people particularly kids wouldn’t see it that way.
@Dj: Lesson No. 47 – Learn to count
@Dj (know your dealer) As if that makes any difference he doesn’t give a toss about you .
Prohibition KILLS
At the same time as an online poll here regarding possession of small amounts of illegal substances.
“Chewing gum can help jaw cramps” – yeah, will help GIVE you jaw cramps! And wreck your stomach. Clearly never did a pill in his life!
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