Irish Examiner view: Sewage failures a bitter spill
File Picture.
This had to be the week in which we learned of the failings of Irish Water.
After heavy rain and flooding in many parts of the country just a few days ago, it seems oddly appropriate to read a report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) pointing out the pressure our waterways are under, except the EPA was not referring to precipitation or blocked drains, but the sewage waste we are pumping into our waterways.
The EPA’s report makes for harrowing reading and one of its most startling points is that only half of Ireland’s sewage disposal meets EU standards to protect the environment, at a time when 90% is the average across the bloc.
Or perhaps it’s the fact that, 16 years after EU deadlines passed to meet treatment standards, 7.5m litres of sewage spills into our rivers and seas every day.
It’s fair to say that Irish Water, the State-owned utility company with responsibility in this area and the recipient of much of the blame, offers a neat target.
From its inception, the company has attracted criticism, much of it well deserved. Readers may recall the outlandish sums spent by Irish Water on consultants within the initial years of its establishment, or the controversial bonus scheme later instituted by the company.
Little wonder it was described as an unmitigated disaster by one politician, Fergus O’Dowd — who, incidentally, helped set up the utility when he was a junior minister.
Dismissing this report as further evidence of Irish Water’s failings, however, misses the bigger picture.
The EPA is doing its job in producing reports such as this, but we then have a choice. We can watch Irish Water being taken to task for a couple of days before the news cycle moves on somewhere else and the headlines are forgotten.
Or we can accept the message contained in the small print in the EPA report, which baldly states that it will take billions of euro and years of work to get all treatment systems up to standard.
That message will have to be converted from aspiration to action at some point, even if the costs make it one recommendation that’s hard to swallow.
