Derek O’Dwyer wirtes to Minster Deenihan
Dear Minister Deenihan,
As the only member of Government to respond to my recent email I’d like to thank you for your professional courtesy.
I’m afraid, however, that I see nothing in your response to indicate that this is, as you purport, an infrastructure programme designed address systemic weaknesses in our water supply.
Our country’s primary issue with its water system is leakage and degradation caused by decades of underfunding by successive governments despite collecting increases in VAT and VRT explicitly for increased water investment. A programme to address this could have started with a small project management team, matrix-managing existing Subject Matter Experts in the local authorities and using existing Capital Plans, Risk Registers & GIS Data and building upon the billing & administrative systems already in place for agricultural and commercial users.
I’m afraid, however, that I see nothing in your response to indicate that this is, as you purport, an infrastructure programme designed address systemic weaknesses in our water supply.
Our country’s primary issue with its water system is leakage and degradation caused by decades of underfunding by successive governments despite collecting increases in VAT and VRT explicitly for increased water investment. A programme to address this could have started with a small project management team, matrix-managing existing Subject Matter Experts in the local authorities and using existing Capital Plans, Risk Registers & GIS Data and building upon the billing & administrative systems already in place for agricultural and commercial users.
A 3 year programme of capital works with extremely low overheads could have been instituted by any competent construction consultancy with a team of no more than 50 people, procuring and managing packages of construction in a rigorous, transparent way, creating significant numbers of construction jobs in the process.
Funding for the programme could have come initially by ensuring that the funds collected for water are reaching the local authorities. Any incremental funding would come, in a progressive way, from general taxation. Only when the infrastructure is fixed would it make sense to rollout any form of metering and domestic conservation measures. If this were to require a tax increase I believe the majority of citizens would listen to, and ultimately accept, any well-expounded explanation that represented value for money and that didn’t insult their intelligence.
Instead, your government has opted for:
* Continued cronyism and featherbedding of incumbents, especially retirees and former consultants from earlier failed or troubled projects
* Obscenely bloated consultancy fees which confirm, with former Minister Hogan’s denials of knowledge, that governance of the utility is off the rails before the train leaves the station
* A scandalous bonus system and a culture of overpayment for poor performance embedded at the outset
* Individuals appointed at senior levels with questionable track records and given responsibilities for which they are ill suited
* Overpriced and disruptive meter installations as a solution that doesn’t address the primary problem - leakage in the infrastructure - carried out following a highly suspect, undocumented procurement process
* A cost model that will ultimately see prices soar as conservation reduces consumption and already bloated fixed overheads rise
* A cost model that already requires obscene callout charges
* A cost model that requires one of Europe’s lowest free-use thresholds and one of Europe’s highest charges per litre
* Highly suspect off balance-sheet accounting that would do Enron proud
* Immoral burdening of local authorities with the pension liabilities of former employees
* An as yet unformulated approach to easily anticipated exceptions such as short-term tenancies, tenants’ rights and landlords’ obligations
* A sinister attempt to create a marketable subscriber database, putting the lie to any pretence that your ultimate objective isn’t to sell the utility - subjecting citizens to significant further costs to cover purchaser profits not to mention loss of control of our most basic utility
* A complete disregard for individuals’ right to data protection and privacy by requesting PPS Numbers on the basis that these could be retained indefinitely and stored outside of the EU to be used by a future purchaser at their discretion
* A shambolic communications process whose “make it up as we go along” amateurism continues to insult the intelligence of citizens
* An ongoing series of U-Turns on allowances, supports, reliefs, caps and benefits that will ultimately create another wasteful administrative burden simply to allay the more egregious implications of this highly regressive tax.
Funding for the programme could have come initially by ensuring that the funds collected for water are reaching the local authorities. Any incremental funding would come, in a progressive way, from general taxation. Only when the infrastructure is fixed would it make sense to rollout any form of metering and domestic conservation measures. If this were to require a tax increase I believe the majority of citizens would listen to, and ultimately accept, any well-expounded explanation that represented value for money and that didn’t insult their intelligence.
Instead, your government has opted for:
* Continued cronyism and featherbedding of incumbents, especially retirees and former consultants from earlier failed or troubled projects
* Obscenely bloated consultancy fees which confirm, with former Minister Hogan’s denials of knowledge, that governance of the utility is off the rails before the train leaves the station
* A scandalous bonus system and a culture of overpayment for poor performance embedded at the outset
* Individuals appointed at senior levels with questionable track records and given responsibilities for which they are ill suited
* Overpriced and disruptive meter installations as a solution that doesn’t address the primary problem - leakage in the infrastructure - carried out following a highly suspect, undocumented procurement process
* A cost model that will ultimately see prices soar as conservation reduces consumption and already bloated fixed overheads rise
* A cost model that already requires obscene callout charges
* A cost model that requires one of Europe’s lowest free-use thresholds and one of Europe’s highest charges per litre
* Highly suspect off balance-sheet accounting that would do Enron proud
* Immoral burdening of local authorities with the pension liabilities of former employees
* An as yet unformulated approach to easily anticipated exceptions such as short-term tenancies, tenants’ rights and landlords’ obligations
* A sinister attempt to create a marketable subscriber database, putting the lie to any pretence that your ultimate objective isn’t to sell the utility - subjecting citizens to significant further costs to cover purchaser profits not to mention loss of control of our most basic utility
* A complete disregard for individuals’ right to data protection and privacy by requesting PPS Numbers on the basis that these could be retained indefinitely and stored outside of the EU to be used by a future purchaser at their discretion
* A shambolic communications process whose “make it up as we go along” amateurism continues to insult the intelligence of citizens
* An ongoing series of U-Turns on allowances, supports, reliefs, caps and benefits that will ultimately create another wasteful administrative burden simply to allay the more egregious implications of this highly regressive tax.
Most disgracefully, having provoked the anger of the population, your government has now fallen back on clumsy smear campaigns, using insulting “subversives-in-the-long-grass” innuendo and heavy handed policing as it attempts to cope with the legitimate citizen protests triggered by this litany of missteps.
I voted for your Government, Minister Deenihan.
Disgusted and shamed by the previous crowd, people had high hopes of a reforming administration that would eliminate and consolidate quangos and challenge overpaid, top-heavy state sector management as well as fighting the good fight in Brussels, Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Berlin. This is certainly not that administration.
This isn’t simply about water and it’s certainly not about citizens’ reluctance to invest prudently in public assets. Citizens will endure pain to the extent that they feel we’re all in this together. We clearly are not. Far from it.
Never in the history of the state has such an opportunity been so effortlessly and incompetently squandered. Despite the idiocies of the previous administration, there’s some acknowledgment that their most shocking final blunders were made in the white heat of a rapidly unfolding crisis. You have no such excuse, handed an action plan you’ve implemented largely unchanged, you have responded cravenly to external pressure and stooped to excesses of cronyism, incompetence and mediocrity that may yet see you go down as the worst administration in our history, despite the failings of your predecessors.
This faltering quango may stumble on in some form, a monument to your folly and idiocy, but your days, and those of your colleagues, left and right, are, I believe, numbered Minister.
Thank you again for responding to my email and for giving me the opportunity to reply,
Derek O’Dwyer
Limerick City
I voted for your Government, Minister Deenihan.
Disgusted and shamed by the previous crowd, people had high hopes of a reforming administration that would eliminate and consolidate quangos and challenge overpaid, top-heavy state sector management as well as fighting the good fight in Brussels, Strasbourg, Frankfurt and Berlin. This is certainly not that administration.
This isn’t simply about water and it’s certainly not about citizens’ reluctance to invest prudently in public assets. Citizens will endure pain to the extent that they feel we’re all in this together. We clearly are not. Far from it.
Never in the history of the state has such an opportunity been so effortlessly and incompetently squandered. Despite the idiocies of the previous administration, there’s some acknowledgment that their most shocking final blunders were made in the white heat of a rapidly unfolding crisis. You have no such excuse, handed an action plan you’ve implemented largely unchanged, you have responded cravenly to external pressure and stooped to excesses of cronyism, incompetence and mediocrity that may yet see you go down as the worst administration in our history, despite the failings of your predecessors.
This faltering quango may stumble on in some form, a monument to your folly and idiocy, but your days, and those of your colleagues, left and right, are, I believe, numbered Minister.
Thank you again for responding to my email and for giving me the opportunity to reply,
Derek O’Dwyer
Limerick City
On 24 Oct 2014, at 14:57, MOSDeenihan@taoiseach.gov.ie wrote:
Dear Derek,
Thank you for contacting me in relation to Irish Water. Please be assured that I do understand that the imposition of any new charge is always very difficult. However, with 18,000 people currently having to boil drinking water every day, and many larger cities struggling to meet their daily capacity requirements, it is essential that we make significant investment in our long neglected water infrastructure. The investment we are making in the water sector will ensure a more efficient, cost effective and high quality water service.
Irish Water has been established as part of a policy of driving overall reform of the water sector. The company represents a major change; the roll-outing of a national domestic metering programme and the introduction of domestic water charges based on usage.
With regard to the introduction of water charges, I can assure you that the Government is aware of the need to protect and support vulnerable households. A number of measures have been introduced to help ensure this. Firstly, a policy direction has been issued to the Commission for Energy Regulation which includes a number of provisions. These include:
· A free allowance of 30,000 litres of water supplied and waste water treated per annum for a primary residence on a public supply.
· A free allowance to cover the normal usage of water services by every child in their primary residence based on the same qualifying conditions as the child benefit allowance.
· A capping of charges for customers with specific medical conditions which require increased water consumption.
It should also be noted that a number of supports are available to people from January 2015 to aid them in paying their water bill. The Household Benefits Package, for instance, will include a new Water Support payment. This will be €100 each year (made up of four equal payments of €25). The Water Support payment will be paid to everyone who qualifies for the Household Benefits Package. All those who qualify for the Fuel Allowance will also receive this €100 per year, provided they do not already get the Household Benefits package. Budget 2015 also introduced tax relief on water charges. This will be granted at 20% up to a maximum of €500 per year.
Kind regards
Jimmy,
Office of
Jimmy Deenihan TD
Minister for Diaspora Affairs
Dear Derek,
Thank you for contacting me in relation to Irish Water. Please be assured that I do understand that the imposition of any new charge is always very difficult. However, with 18,000 people currently having to boil drinking water every day, and many larger cities struggling to meet their daily capacity requirements, it is essential that we make significant investment in our long neglected water infrastructure. The investment we are making in the water sector will ensure a more efficient, cost effective and high quality water service.
Irish Water has been established as part of a policy of driving overall reform of the water sector. The company represents a major change; the roll-outing of a national domestic metering programme and the introduction of domestic water charges based on usage.
With regard to the introduction of water charges, I can assure you that the Government is aware of the need to protect and support vulnerable households. A number of measures have been introduced to help ensure this. Firstly, a policy direction has been issued to the Commission for Energy Regulation which includes a number of provisions. These include:
· A free allowance of 30,000 litres of water supplied and waste water treated per annum for a primary residence on a public supply.
· A free allowance to cover the normal usage of water services by every child in their primary residence based on the same qualifying conditions as the child benefit allowance.
· A capping of charges for customers with specific medical conditions which require increased water consumption.
It should also be noted that a number of supports are available to people from January 2015 to aid them in paying their water bill. The Household Benefits Package, for instance, will include a new Water Support payment. This will be €100 each year (made up of four equal payments of €25). The Water Support payment will be paid to everyone who qualifies for the Household Benefits Package. All those who qualify for the Fuel Allowance will also receive this €100 per year, provided they do not already get the Household Benefits package. Budget 2015 also introduced tax relief on water charges. This will be granted at 20% up to a maximum of €500 per year.
Kind regards
Jimmy,
Office of
Jimmy Deenihan TD
Minister for Diaspora Affairs
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