Looking into the hole at Irish Water

A REGULAR feature in engineering works is “looking into the hole”. This involves a group of often highly educated engineering personnel peering down a hole in the ground and thinking.

They think about the secrets held within the hole, or the problems with the hole, and how you might go about addressing them. Sometimes, the thinking is concerned with the wonders of the hole, how it was created and whether it is a good or a bad thing.

Often, there is a man down the hole, working, while those above are doing their thinking. The thinking is done behind faces that convey the depth of thought being undertaken. And then everybody drifts away from the hole, spent from all that hard thinking.

Last week, all the hoopla surrounding Irish Water reminded me of the phenomenon of “looking into the hole”. A lot of people, politicians, media, the public, were peering into the darkness where the new utility body lurks. Answers were sought, seams explored, a spot of drilling engaged in, but by the end of it all, everybody began drifting away, unsure as to what was really going on.

John Tierney, the head of Irish Water, was the man with his head on the block. How could he oversee the retention of consultants that cost €50m? Was the man using consultants for breakfast, dinner, lunch, and tea? Evidence was rolled out to suggest he might be. Consultants dined out on the proposed Poolbeg incinerator in Dublin, while Tierney was city manager. Costs there now stand at nearly €100m, one third of which was gobbled up by consultants.

There were mutterings that he splashed the cash while head honcho in Galway. Could this propensity to call in consultants at the drop of a hat be the reason why millions poured into consultants’ coffers like the purest of Irish water?

To be fair to Tierney, his record is not as bad as was made out. In local authority circles, he has acquired the reputation as “a doer”. Other mangers might spend little and get a pat on the head but all it really implies is they prefer to sit on their hands rather than be pro-active. Tierney is not of that ilk.

Poolbeg has been a disaster, and was so before he arrived in the capital in 2006. The reality is that any project which runs into major objections is going to see costs multiply. In Poolbeg, opposition locally was well-researched, well-organised, and may actually succeed. Opposition also came from the highest echelons of governments. Both Michael McDowell in the 2002-2007 administration and John Gormley in the following Dáil term moved mountains at cabinet level to ensure the project would not go ahead in their backyard. In such an environment, it’s inevitable that costs will spiral.

None of which is to say that Tierney doesn’t have questions to answer in his current role. The level of consulting employed in the start-up may be justified, but neither he, nor his executives, have provided evidence to back up the spending.

Of far more concern should be the role of the employees in the new utility body. In particular, the news that they will be entitled to bonuses of around 10% of annual salary should ring alarm bells. What exactly will they do to merit a bonus? What exactly will they do to justify a salary in the first place? Irish Water will, at full capacity, employ about 500 personnel. For the next 12 years, the water infrastructure will continue to be operated by the local authorities, under a service agreement signed last year.

Operating the infrastructure is currently monitored by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). In effect, these guys are the ones standing over the hole, while the local authority personnel are doing the work down below.

Now the EPA is to be joined at the lip of the hole by monitors from Irish Water. What is afoot here is huge duplication of the role already undertaken by the EPA. If the new boys and girls in Irish Water are not doing the work, and if monitoring is already being undertaken by another agency, what exactly will they be doing? Consulting?

There is also a looming issue over division of expertise and experience. Currently, Irish Water is recruiting from the local authorities, lifting experienced personnel out of the hole, up to ground level, to do some thinking. This draining of the expertise required to run the treatment infrastructure is already being sorely felt in local authorities. It’s difficult to see how it can’t have an impact on the smooth running of cleaning and supplying water.

Who will get the blame when things go wrong? Last year, there was a major farrago in Dublin when water restrictions were imposed due to malfunctioning at a reservoir. If such a scenario were to occur in the future, who will be dragged out for a public flogging? Equally, in years when everything is hunky dory, we now know that personnel in Irish Water will be in line for bonuses. For what? Their role will be more monitoring than actually doing the work. Then again, if suspicions are correct, the bonuses will probably have nothing to do with performance, one way or the other.

All of which leads to the conclusion that the main function of Irish Water over the coming years will be to act as a bill collector. While the local authorities continue to operate the water infrastructure, the new body will be left to concentrate on totting up the bills for consumption and chase down those who don’t cough up.

Admittedly, it would be difficult for local authorities to perform this function with real efficiency. Such efforts would be stymied by political interference, with councillors lobbying for waivers and reductions irrespective of the justification or actual circumstances of petitioners. So the principle of setting up a new utility body is sound.

Major questions remain about efficiencies, possible duplication of functions, negative impact on local authorities, and what exact performance will merit a bonus. These questions require addressing or time might see them ballooning into serious issues.