“An additional levy on ordinary households to invest in our crumbling water infrastructure is a complete non-starter - no matter how hard or how often the property developer industry lobbies,” Gerry Carroll said.
“People are living through a never-ending cost of living crisis that’s crushing working class communities. Bills, insurance, mortgages and rents are up and oil and gas prices are skyrocketing. Rates have just been hiked. People are sick and tired of paying more for less.”
“We’re in the throes of a housing crisis, with almost 50,000 families waiting on social housing, and rates of housebuilding at historic lows. People can’t wait any longer for safe, secure and permanent homes. The Executive urgently needs to front up the money to fix our infrastructure, and hugely profitable housing developers need to play their part too.”
“Liz Kimmins had the opportunity to introduce mandatory developer contributions, so that these developers would be forced to make a meaningful investment in the system they’re making record profits from. But instead, Sinn Fein made developer contributions voluntary - a totally wasted opportunity.”
“There’s no doubt that our infrastructure is in serious need of repair and investment. But working class people didn’t cause this mess, and they shouldn’t be forced to pay for it. The blame lies squarely with an inept Stormont Executive, which has given the greenlight to polluters and chronically underfunded NI Water for decades.”