Bord Gáis bids for Irish Water job

Bord Gáis says it can save €120m in start-up costs if it is given the task of establishing the proposed national Irish Water utility — expected to serve more than 1.5m customers by 2014.

Bord Gáis Éireann has made a submission to the Department of the Environment to pitch for the job of setting up Irish Water. The proposed company will take over the multi-billion euro water investment and maintenance programmes of the 34 local authorities, employing close to 4,000 people, with the key aim of “supervising and accelerating the pace of delivery of planned investments needed to upgrade the State’s water and sewerage networks”, as outlined in the Programme for Government.

The Bord Gáis proposal stands, despite the Government’s decision this week to sell off Bord Gáis Energy.