Irish Water set to be a smaller, damper HSE

Irish Water looks set to be a damper, smaller HSE, but hopefully not quite the omnishambles. But it truly is the quango that seems to contain all that is bad about Irish governance.

From its inception, through the installation of water meters and to the issues around billing, and without doubt as we will see when it actually operates, it is an unedifying tale of a lack of joined-up thinking writ large.

We are incapable of planning, as is evident time and again. Despite its name, the Department of Public Expenditure and Reform has done scant reforming, leaving processes and mindsets immutable as the rocks.

A great deal of the blame must be laid at the foot of the Government. It had the opportunity to force through rational, customer-centred approaches, but instead displayed a hamfisted approach which has generated needless resentment and suspicion.

Water costs money. Although it falls upon our heads with distressing regularity, you generally can’t drink the rainwater. It needs to be treated, stored, and distributed, and there is capital investment involved. Until now, the process has been done, to the aggregate tune of just over €1bn, from general tax revenue.

The collapse of the taxbase post-2008 resulted in the State, spurred on by the troika, seeing a variety of ways to increase revenue. Partially as a result of this, and partially to inculcate a sense of water discipline, water charges were agreed. Nobody likes paying extra charges, but here we are.

To charge people effectively for produce, you need to be able to monitor how much they use.

Here’s the first part of the omnishambles. Siemens long ago offered to install, at no cost to the State, a set of water meters. It’s not clear why this offer was turned down. It’s not like the State, or those who live in it, have an abundance of money to pay for these things.

We have previously had offers from consortia to pay for large-scale infrastructure, which got turned down. If somebody is offering to build something for free, in return for a licence to operate it, you would want a good reason, publicly explained, as to why you would not want to do this. No such reasons have ever been forthcoming. We have a good habit of looking gift horses in the mouth.

The circus rolled on with the meter installation, where a one-size-fits-nobody package was provided. Rather than stimulating local enterprise by requiring people to install a meter, subject to certain minimum standards, a monopoly on meter installation was provided to a particular company. We like monopolies.

Installation involves digging up outside your house, installing something, and then restoring the pavement. Each and every house, apartment, and dwelling has a meter, or will have one.

This would have been a good opportunity to provide every home with a simple package outlining how one pays the bill for the service. Instead, this was separated.

Social media and radio phone-in shows are alight with requests from people as to where their packages are. In some ways, it’s quite heartening to see the number of people who want to get a package so they can pay for the utility.

By the end of September, Irish Water says it expects to have 450,000 meters installed, with over 2m people to have bill packages delivered. Even at bulk postage rates, this is still a spend of at least €1.5m. It cannot be more efficient to have bulky documents posted than to have them delivered at the time of meter installation.

The actual billpay package itself is not an application pack; you’ve already been supplied with the service.

Children are to be provided with a particular amount of water for free, but to prove I have a child, each child’s PPS number is required. We may as well give up the pretence that we do not have a national ID card.

No guarantees are being given by Irish Water that the PPS numbers will not be sold and be part of a database. It’s a lazy trawl, or worse, a cynical asset grab with an eye to a future sale. Irish Water correctly states that there is legislation to prevent it being sold. However, legislation can be overturned, and the existence of this asset makes Irish Water more valuable.

Finally, we have the structure. In the same way as the HSE replicated and absorbed the health boards, resulting in what most people would agree is a bloated mess, the decision was taken to taper out the involvement of county councils over a 12-year period. No rationale has been given for this

Irish Water is an exemplar of how not to do things, and of how we do them.