Ireland is tackling the issue of water shortages, writes CONOR POPE, but at what cost to you?
WATER COMES out of the sky freely and frequently in Ireland but it costs a vast amount to get it to come out of our taps. The Government spends over €1 billion annually on water treatment facilities and over the next three years will splash out a further €1.8 billion on upgrading the State’s water supply infrastructure.
Despite the costs, much of our treated water is used carelessly. During the big freeze in January, the main reason water supplies dried up was down to people leaving taps running for days to prevent freezing pipes.
Another even more serious problem is a chronic under-investment in an ageing infrastructure – as much as 58 per cent of the water supply disappears through leaky pipes in some local authority areas.
To avoid the substantial EU fines coming down the tracks for breaching water conservation regulations, the Government announced plans in last December’s budget to reintroduce the water charges that were abolished in the mid-1990s. It had two choices: a metered system or a flat water charge. It has opted for the former as meters are considered more equitable and better suited for water conservation – international studies show 16 per cent less water is used when metered. Meters are also considerably more expensive: it will cost €600m over the next two years to install them in over 1.2 million homes.
The Minister for the Environment John Gormley accepts the move towards water charges is unlikely to be popular. “This is a display of realism here,” he said earlier this week. “We are saying that we have a problem with water. I am facing up to that problem.”
But how much will we end up paying? Gormley has declined to say. An initial supply will be made free, after which charges will kick in. Charges will not differ from local authority to local authority, and households are unlikely to have much change out of €400 each year.
The anti-water-charge campaign, fronted by the Socialist Party’s Clare Daly, a councillor who shot to prominence on the back of the bin tax protest, accuses the Government of “trying to dress up a new tax in environmental clothes”.
Daly says half the State’s housing stock had been built since the mid-1990s “yet precious little water conservation measures were put in place in terms of rain-water harvesting or dual-flush toilets”. She claims the purpose of the charges are “to commodify an essential public service and facilitate a direct charge.”
Oisín Coughlan of Friends of the Earth disagrees. “The reality is that taxes were reduced in the 1990s, as was the amount of money made available to local government, so our water infrastructure suffered from serious under-investment,” he says. “There is no doubt we waste water. There is a real sense that it is plentiful because it rains so much but there is a real cost to water and it is a scare resource.”
The Republic is one of the few developed countries where water charges do not exist. The Australian model most closely resembles Ireland’s – households there are given an allowance of water each year but most use well in excess of that and the average cost to households is around $250 (€175) each year.
In Britain people pay a flat rate for their water, although water meters are optional in most areas. The average bill is around £500 (€577) and it is estimated households using meters can save up to £125 (€144).
Germany’s water charges are among the highest in Europe with average bills running to €750. They have been dogged by controversy in recent years. There are 6,200 suppliers in the country and prices vary by as much as 300 per cent. Earlier this year the German constitutional court extended the powers of state competition authorities to regulate prices and to use price comparisons with other water suppliers as a basis for market abuse charges.