The Dublin city manager, Mr John Fitzgerald, has expressed his support for the reintroduction of water charges.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio's This Week programme yesterday, he said the charge - which had applied in various forms until 1996 - should not have been abolished.
While it would be up to the Government to decide on whether it should be reintroduced, he said he believed it would "come back onto the agenda".
"I can't say what Government is going to do, but I can say that my personal opinion - and my opinion as a professional local government manager - is that there should be a charge for water," said Mr Fitzgerald.
A number of politicians on a cross-party basis also support their reintroduction, although the official policy of Fine Gael and Labour is to oppose the charges.
Ireland is the only EU or OECD state not to charge for domestic water - a fact which has drawn the attention of the European Commission, which has asked the Government to reintroduce a charge for environmental reasons.
Mr Fitzgerald noted that the average home-owner in the UK paid £1,500 in council taxes. Arguments about "double taxation" did not stand up, he said, noting that Ireland now had one of the lowest tax regimes in Europe.
Regarding water or waste charges, he said: "You can make the same argument that you should not pay for television licences . . . user charges for waste management and other public services are a fact of life, and they are just not going to go away."
Service charges have been a contentious political issue since domestic rates were abolished in 1978 as promised in Fianna Fáil's election manifesto of the previous year. In 1983 charges were introduced on a discretionary basis to provide local revenue, but these were challenged in the courts and eventually revoked.
A second attempt to introduce water charges in 1994 also failed as the Rainbow Coalition bowed to pressure from residents.
