Implications of Irish Water fiasco: A symptom of political ineptitude

Just as Gerry Adams seems to have, finally, met his nemesis in Maíria Cahill, the Government has met theirs in Irish Water. 

A long overdue project Irish Water was to have been the standard bearer for reform. It was to have been an icon for a new way of doing public business in a cleaned-up Ireland. Tragically, but, in hindsight predictably, it has turned into a nightmare of confusion, hubris, the same old snouts-in-the-trough indulgence, underlined by an almost palpable disdain for the citizens the quango was set up to serve.

It has shown too that a Government elected to bring change remains in thrall to old ways and unable — or unwilling — to assert the authority entrusted to it by the electorate. How can a Government not be in control of a semi-state organisation? It may not have a day-to-day role but it must at least set — and enforce — parameters that reflect social equity.