Irish Water has had a great fall

On Monday, Taoiseach Enda Kenny said the Government will shortly take decisions on Irish Water that will provide greater clarity about the utility and the charges the public will face. The mind boggles.

The genesis of this company goes back at least two years. Surely, the necessary decisions had been taken before the Government committed itself to tens of millions of euro in expenditure? If it didn’t, and that seems to be the case, then we are in far bigger trouble than we thought. It basically means this Government rammed the formation of a semi-state utility down the throats of the electorate, having first rammed it down the throats of the representatives of the people in parliament. Worse still, ministers rammed it through without knowing what the hell they were doing and now, they still need more time to make ‘decisions’ and get ‘clarity’ on what those decisions mean.

There is a view abroad that the organisation was set up so that it could be privatised down the road, and perhaps even make a lot of money for those boys and girls ‘lucky’ enough to be employed, particularly in the most senior levels. On the face of it, given the evasive answers when privatisation was discussed and even now Government’s reluctance to lock out the possibility, it would be easy to get the impression it was destined for privatisation.