Mick Clifford: The Irish problem with paying for water nobody wants to solve
On the face of it, the principle of water charges was a no-brainer. Since the abolition of rates in 1977, there was effectively no direct charge for household services such as treated water and waste. Picture: Denis Minihane
It was a chilly afternoon on the canvas. Paul Murphy was going door to door in Tallaght, fighting an uphill battle in his attempt to be elected to the Dáil. This was October 2014.
A few months previously, the Dublin South West TD Brian Hayes had been elected to the European Parliament and his Dáil seat was up for grabs. Sinn Féin’s candidate Cathal King was an unbackable 1/8, with Murphy trailing at a value bet of 9/2.
At the time, the by-election appeared to be an innocuous affair. The Fine Gael/Labour government had a huge majority. The seat would go to an opposition entity, but it would have no impact on the arithmetic of the Dáil.
In Dromcarra Avenue estate, Carmel Murphy answered her door and told the candidate that nearby trees were causing a nuisance.
“I’ve two trees I want taken down,” Carmel told the TD. “I know the council are against it, but they’re really bothering me.” She showed Murphy the trees, and he scribbled down a few notes.
“If I’m elected a TD, I can’t get trees cut down, but I’ll see what I can do,” the TD said, before reeling the canvas back to the main event.
Carmel looked at him like he had two heads out of which a stupid question had emerged. “Of course I am,” she said.
The proposed water charges had generated opposition and protests led by Murphy’s Anti-Austerity Alliance. At the time, it still looked as if this hurdle could be comfortably cleared by the government.
The charges were cast as the last major measure of austerity imposed by the Troika that had to be called in following the economic collapse of 2008. However, in working-class areas, this was being seen as a straw that was about to do serious damage to the proverbial camel’s back.
As it was to turn out, the Dublin South West by-election was the most consequential election of any sort in this State for decades before or since.
Murphy won against all the odds, changing the whole pitch of the battle over water charges.
A plan to invest heavily in the water and wastewater infrastructure was blown apart. One central element to the plan, that on the back of charges money could be borrowed “off balance sheet” to fund for major investment, was gone. And this State would remain an outlier in developed, and even undeveloped, countries across the globe in failing to charge directly for treated water and wastewater facilities.
On the face of it, the principle of water charges was a no-brainer. Since the abolition of rates in 1977, there was effectively no direct charge for household services such as treated water and waste.
The rates system was unfair, weighted against smaller homes in less affluent and disadvantaged areas. It should have been reformed. Instead, Fianna Fáil — applying the razzmatazz of US elections — decided that it would be the perfect goodie entice voters with. And so it turned out to be.
As with much in Irish politics, nothing beyond the next election mattered a whit. Once rates were abolished, there would be no return.
There was a half-assed attempt to introduce water charges in the 1990s, but after that it was considered not worth the trouble.
The Greens were the only party that appeared to give a fig that a precious resource was being handed out free gratis with, at the very least, no incentive to conserve.
So it was that water charges were included in the programme for government in 2007, in which the Greens went into power for the first time.
The crash put everything on hold. Then it fell to the Fine Gael/Labour government to implement what the Troika, on its way out the door, said was a no-brainer. How the government went about it was probably at the heart of what was to unfold.
“There was such bad communication,” said Friends of the Earth director Oisín Coughlan.
“The charges were announced just after the Troika left. And Enda Kenny said that it would be the last austerity measure, which was not what people wanted to hear.
"He might as well have said 'come and get me' as far as opposition was concerned.”
One of the central planks of opposition was that the introduction of charges was perceived as the first move towards privatisation of the water infrastructure.
“Absolutely, it is the case that Phil Hogan [minister for the environment at the time] and Fine Gael probably had that in the back of their heads,” Coughlan said. “But it’s highly unlikely that it would ever have got to that.”
Still, at a time when it was becoming apparent that those at the top were emerging from austerity pretty intact, the idea that the haves could make another killing on the backs of the have nots was enough to generate major opposition.
Then came Murphy’s election. Sinn Féin, reeling in shock, immediately hardened its stance against the charges thereafter and muscled its way into a leading role.
Major protests were organised and the opposition spread. Phil Hogan, who was the public face of the charges policy, exited to Brussels and was replaced with Labour's Alan Kelly. By then the die had been cast.
The charges regime was introduced, but huge numbers simply refused to pay it. In October 2016, an MRBI opinion poll showed that 62% of respondents were in favour of scrapping the charge while only 34% wanted to regain the new regime.
With figures like that there was no future for the policy. Before the year was out, water charges were scrapped.
That was the end of water charges for the foreseeable future. The scrapping represented a victory for left-wing political, and some trade union, elements. It was a rare success and one in which they understandably basked. They had, in their minds, defeated the wielders of austerity.
However, the campaign did not prove to be a bridgehead to a new kind of politics. It did not herald a new political entity or an alliance of elements that saw themselves as an alternative to Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael.
One of the stumbling blocks in this respect was the positioning of the Labour and Green parties, both of which had had involvement in and support for the policy on water charges.
There the matter rested. An Irish solution to an Irish problem was invoked. Commitments to the EU directive on water and wastewater were long-fingered. The environmental argument about charges encouraging conservations was quietly shelved. And the proposed funding model was scrapped. Instead, the major investment required would come from central funds.
A central feature of the water charges policy was the installation of water meters in all domestic dwellings. The installation work was a flashpoint for protests, including clashes between construction workers, protesters, and occasionally gardaí.
Before the ending of the installations, around 60% of domestic homes had been metered. But when the policy was discontinued, so also was the metering, not least because of the separate opposition it had attracted.
Metering is now only a feature of newly built homes, but this is not connected to any future proofing policy of charging.
“These meters are used to ensure that any new distribution network, which is installed by a developer, has a very low level of leakage before we take over the network,” a spokesman for Uisce Éireann said.
Accordingly, taking into account all the new builds over the last nine years, around half of all homes are now believed to be metered.
Earlier this year, two governments and eight years on from the height of the opposition, some civil servants dipped their metaphorical toes in the water charges issue again. A suggestion was floated from the Department of Housing to charge for excess water use.
Immediately, a cacophony of opposition howls rent the political air. These were led by Sinn Féin, determined in the aftermath of last November’s election results not to be outflanked on their left again.
After a brief period during which the spectre of reawakening a rampaging and frightening beast was contemplated, the whole notion was shelved. Ireland, it was concluded, was not ready for anything to do with charging water, even for those consume huge amounts of it.
“I can’t see it happening,” said Gary Murphy, a professor of politics in Dublin City University.
“It’s now 10 years since that attempt to bring it in and the storm it engendered then would be just as bad now — if not worse. I can’t see any government going near water charges anytime in the near future.”
So it goes politically, but what about the environmental argument? Coughlan says that his view on the whole issue of water charge has evolved over the years.
“I started out, as others in the environmental sphere, in favour of the polluter pays principal and water charges,” he said.
“That put us on the wrong side of the anti-austerity marches, which was a pity because we agreed with a lot of the same things apart from this.
“Research has been done that shows that domestic water use is not a massive percentage of overall use, so questions arise as to whether it would be beneficial.
“The other consideration is the funding model that was being proposed. It was to go towards investing in leaking pipes but, when the policy was dropped, the government did not invest the kind of money that was deemed to be required. If that had happened, we wouldn’t be in the position we are now that houses can’t be built because of the issues in the water infrastructure.”
Sinead O’Brien concurs with much of Coughlan’s analysis. She is the co-ordinator for the Sustainable Water Network, a coalition of environmental groups focused on water issues.
“We hired a consultant who had done work on water charges in other jurisdictions, and she determined that when you look at the cost of administration and the effect on people’s behaviour, the system wouldn’t have saved that much water,” she says.
“What’s a lot better is working with stakeholders, particularly locally, to raise awareness about water and the best ways to conserve it.”
What remains of particular concern with the current regime is the funding model. Now that Uisce Éireann cannot raise its own funds, it is entirely dependent on investment to come from the central exchequer.
What has emerged in stark terms this year is that the required investment has not been made over the last decade, leading to real fears that the lack of a proper water infrastructure is going to impede an accelerated programme of house building.
Uisce Éireann estimates that €60bn will be needed over the next 25 years to bring the whole infrastructure up to date. The body’s strategic funding plan 2025-2029 states that “ambitious” investment is badly needed.
“The repair and upgrading of the country’s water and wastewater treatment plants, and water and sewage networks will require a multibillion-euro investment programme that will extend beyond the lifetime of this plan,” the report states.
This investment will have to come from central funding, in competition with other sectors such as health, education, and justice. Whether governments of today and tomorrow are willing to invest in the future, way beyond the next election, for the water infrastructure that is required remains to be seen.
That, perhaps, is the longest lasting legacy of the failure to implement water charges when a cack-handed plan was met with stiff and organised resistance.
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