Irish Water staffing - If you want to make an omelette ...
Despite considerable disquiet about consultants’ fees, secrecy, accountability, water charges, staffing levels or selection we still need a modern, efficient, user-funded national water scheme.
Despite how legislation was frog-marched through the Dáil without even token scrutiny, despite the fact that it was set up in a way that avoids the attention of the comptroller and auditor general or Freedom of Information Act intrusions, it is an essential development in the process of streamlining public services and delivery.
Despite these caveats it remains in the best interests of the country that this venture be a resounding success — the project is more an imperative than an option.
The establishment and management of that process — and the rewards that flow from it — will provoke debate and cynicism for years if not decades to come. The assertion by Prof John FitzGerald of the ESRI that overstaffing at the utility will cost up to €2bn will add more than a dash of Tabasco to the debate. And so it should even if we have been here before.
Prof FitzGerald’s warning is an echo of the promise made by Bertie Ahern to health boards’ staff before the HSE was established — to paraphrase Mr Ahern: “Your jobs are safe no matter what happens.” This seems to be the case for the local authority staff whose work will be the responsibility of Irish Water. This assumed obligation, unparalleled outside of the public service, is a consequence of a practice that can no longer stand. It is the expectation that once a public sector job has been secured then the incumbent has a job for life. This enviable situation has tied the hands of those brave enough to attempt to change the status quo. Mr Ahern’s guarantee damaged his reputation and those who stand over today’s bloated Irish Water can expect nothing less.
Though Irish Water may take the flak for paying staff it does not need, this bizarre situation is the result of a political decision, or rather political indecision, and should be regarded as such. The number of politicians with the conviction to impose redundancies so they might be free to reallocate resources at the very heart of the public sector are far and few between. They know only too well what the consequences might be so, unsurprisingly, they move on to the next item on the agenda. This does not serve politics, our public sector or the public interest well but it is, sadly, a stick we have cut for our own back.
This drama, which is a long way from the closing act, seems a microcosm for so much of what needs to be fixed in this country. It also suggests, tragically, that we have neither learnt the lessons from the past nor, much more importantly, found the courage to implement them. We have not accepted, as Environment Minister Phil Hogan reminded us a week or two ago, that if you want to make an omelette that you have to break eggs. How transformative, and how surprising, it would be if he took his own advice.
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