Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny has this evening accused the Government of a climb down on school water charges.
Taoiseach Bertie Ahern told Mr Kenny during leaders questions in the Dail earlier that schools should now hold on to the water bills they have received until further measures to relieve the situation can be brought forward.
Mr Ahern said there would be a transition period - possibly up to the end of 2009 - which would enable schools to implement water conservation and stop waste before the new water charges were introduced.
"It would involve the payment by schools of a flat rate, appropriate to the school's size, [which] we have to work out, but clearly it wouldn't be like the jumps we are now getting from €300 to €6,000," Mr Ahern told Mr Kenny.
Mr Kenny said the "Government really are lurching from one mess to another. There appears to be no-one in charge and no-one co-ordinating the efforts of the different strands of Government.
"I welcome the fact that the Taoiseach and his Government has been forced in to a humiliating climb down today on the issue of school water charges," said Mr Kenny.
Earlier, the controversy surrounding school water charges was discussed at a special meeting of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Education and Science.
At the meeting, Fine Gael and the Labour Party tabled a motion calling on Mr Minister for the Environment John Gormley to defer the charges until the end of 2009.
Labour's Ruairí Quinn and Fine Gael's Brian Hayes described charges as "dishonest and excessive" and suggested they should not come on line until the end of 2009, and only after each school has been fitted with a meter.
Each school should get a "generous" per head water allowance and face charges only after that has been exceeded, while schools should get a one-off grant to cut usage, and reduce waste, they said.