Cantillon: No cold water being thrown on debate

The establishment of Irish Water, a project that will lead to the creation of a major new utility company with assets of approximately €11 billion, and a list of customers that will include just about every household in the land, was always going to be an interesting adventure.

So it is proving. The media’s attention was captured by the disclosure that John FitzGerald of the ESRI reckons up to €2 billion in potential savings over a decade is at risk because of how the staffing of Ireland’s water services will operate.

When he was on Newstalk's Pat Kenny Show, FitzGerald countered any tendency to put the blame on the new utility and pointed towards the author of the legislation under which Irish Water was created – the Department of the Environment, Community and Local Government.

Under the legislation, the new utility was required to enter into service agreements with the local authorities.

Which is where the politics of all this lies. The Opposition loves an opportunity to throw mud at Minister for the Environment Phil Hogan, deeming him to be a good potential target for those wanting to do damage to the Government. And it has to be said that Hogan has been pretty ham-fisted in his handling of the whole affair. He seems almost semi-detached from a project that has a huge potential for saving public money and contributing to the future wellbeing of all.

Fianna Fáil's spokesman on the environment Barry Cowen (above) featured on Seán O'Rourke's programme on RTÉ Radio 1, and said Pat Rabbitte's blaming of the troika for pushing the establishment of Irish Water at too fast a pace was just a cover for his Government's poor performance in relation to the utility. But when invited to explore what might happen to the local authority workers if Irish Water was to pursue a more efficient staffing plan, he decided not to follow that stream of debate.

There is another reason why Cowen didn’t work so well as an attack dog on the issue. You can’t help, when listening to him, hearing similar tones to his brother, Brian, and being transported back to, say, 2005. And not only is that just weird, it is also a PR disaster for Fianna Fáil.