New sense of urgency is essential - Securing viable water supplies

There is hardly an issue that better illustrates the disharmony, dysfunction and delusion undermining this society than water.

Our failure to manage it, protect it, cherish it, and ensure our children will have a plentiful supply in the future shows us in a poor, almost infantile light time after time.

The outgoing Government’s efforts to turn decades of neglect around by establishing a single water authority and introduce a water charge was embarrassingly inept, but that does not take away from the logic, or inevitability, behind the project. That fiasco was a major factor in Fine Gael’s loss of 26 of the seats the party won in February 2011. It contributed to something approaching oblivion for Labour.