We need an Irish Water, just not the one we have

The Government might like to wish the political headache away, but Irish Water has not gone away, writes Paul Mills.

Through the winter and the spring the efforts of Irish Water to install water meters was never very far from the headlines, whether it was installers being ‘harassed’ or a senior minister or two feeling that they were being hijacked or prevented from leaving meetings that they had.

Like the Circus in Rome, our attention has been diverted by Greece and all its woes, but only temporarily. By starting its election campaign and by hijacking their appearance at the Banking Inquiry in the interests of electioneering, Enda Kenny and others have effectively made Irish Water an election issue.

That was articulated recently by Michael McNicholas, CEO of Eriva, Irish Water’s parent company.

He admitted the possibility that the company as it currently stands is still very much in the cross hairs, particularly now that it will remain on the taxpayers’ balance sheet for a while yet.

Some folk are still allegedly threatening meter installers. Only 43% have paid their bills, though some of the low payment levels may be because of inefficiencies at Irish Water.

We’ve been advised that the company’s borrowings are fairly high. Its unions have now decided that they are entitled to a bonus. The legal eagles are involved.

To date our focus has been centred on how Irish Water was established, on how it was to be funded and the many stories about the terms and conditions that its employees would enjoy.

We wondered why, if it was consolidating the efforts to better manage water, it appeared to need to employ everyone who had ever worked in the local authority water departments, as well as many other areas.

There was and is a clear attempt to hide information from us. The arrogance of our government and the apparent inability of those selected to manage Irish Water to do their job effectively and efficiently greatly bothers us as well. Indeed, if the intention was to conserve water, why did the Government offer us grants to effectively encourage us to turn on the taps?

It’s even more unfortunate given the fact that demand for drinking water has increased. It’s a problem in Ireland. We’ve seen how close we came to drought or restricted water supply in recent years when the Dublin processing plant broke down. There are plans to bring water from the west of Ireland to Dublin.

In the UK, there are regular summer shortages and the problems are only going to get worse. There’s a joke that a glass of water in London is the cleanest in the world because “it’s passed through 40 people”. Unfortunately, that is also its problem as over treatment and over pollution reduces the ability to use it in the future.

At the same time, once flourishing rivers across the world no longer reach the sea. In many parts of the Middle East aquifers are drying up as these countries become more industrialised and use up more and more water. There will be a projected 40% shortfall by 2030 in the region.

We need an Irish Water, just maybe not the one we have. We need one that is properly structured and managed and understands its mission.

We need one that works on managing the availability of good clean and healthy water and not one that appears to have the interests of its own managers and employees to the fore.

The last thing we need is for the Government to set the utility up for sale to the highest bidder. If Nama has gone about attracting vulture funds to purchase Irish assets, we can only imagine what a privatisation of Irish Water might attract.

Indeed, we should make it very clear to our aspirant election candidates that even a suggestion for a vote for water privatisation will be considered as a signal for an early change of government.

Paul Mills