The struggle against water charges is 17 months old. Like all genuine mass mobilizations it contains all sorts of groups and has organised around a wide range of strategies and activities. It has dominated the main streets of the capital but has also been led down cul de sacs.

What it has not done is develop into a coherent mass movement with a unified central leadership. It remains a loose alliance of 'left' unions, political parties and community groups, facing a centrally organised and determined enemy with all the resources of the state behind it.

A number of obstacles stand in the way of greater unity.

The first is that the general belief that water charges are the responsibility of a group of wrong-headed politicians and that it can be reversed by exerting pressure on the current Dail or electing a new one. This view is expressed in the right2water unions "programme for a progressive government". It is   mistaken. Water privatisation is part of a broader raft of    privatisation proposals from the Troika and any Irish government that works within the narrow confines of the Troika programme will find it almost impossible to avoid water   privatisation - in fact, as the Lansdowne Road agreement between ICTU and the government makes clear, the rules envisage the privatisation of the majority of public services and utilities.

There is also a strong element of political sectarianism that stands in the way of a more effective campaign. Each group is content to build itself and to carve out an electoral base without regard to the need to build the movement as a whole. 

This limited and inward-looking approach creates a democratic deficit in the movement. Decisions are taken by ad-hoc steering committees, conferences are by invitation only and/or restricted to pre-set topics. There is no forum for wider political or strategic discussion, no genuinely democratic decision making.

The leaders of the right2water unions claim that they represent a democratic structure. Should they, with tens of  thousands of members, be bound by the views of political and community groups? Anyone with experience of union systems will know how limited democratic structures in the unions are. They will also know that the bureaucracy walk on both sides of the street, simultaneously helping to set up Irish water and opposing water charges.

There are strong reasons for building a democratic movement and organising a political counterweight to union bosses. Not the least is the reality that the government are preparing to use the full force of the Garda and Judiciary against protest.

The situation remains where it has been throughout 2015. We need to build a unified and co-ordinated movement through the organisation of an open national conference. We need adopt as central policy a call for the immediate closure of Irish water by any means necessary and demand that the   union leaders instruct members to return to their local government contracts. 

We face a powerful centralised opposition with clear goals. Can we afford to be less organised, less clear in our goals ?