Plain speaking when it comes to Irish Water

What a relief! Minister for Public Expenditure Brendan Howlin has told the Dáil that Irish Water is no white elephant. That is reassuring, especially after €180 million has been spent on it so far, including €85 million on consultancy fees.

And of course it goes without saying that everything will be hunky dory if the authority operates its business the way the Government operated its own business to allow the great agency be established.

Remember those pre-Christmas lengthy, detailed, nitty gritty Oireachtas discussions on every aspect of the legislation? No. Of course not – because they didn’t happen.

Legislation that will cost 1.6 million householders an estimated €500 million annually was rammed through in three hours in the Dáil on the last day before the recess.

Reform
Now that's the way to do business, reform the Houses of the Oireachtas and at the same time set a fine example of how to behave, to the gurus operating the new company.

Without the gurus and agency, there would be the dreaded status quo. What’s that? A “fragmented, under-invested delivery system for the most important of public resources to people, which is water”.

And there’s a lot of work to do as Brendan said – €1.2 billion currently being spent to run an “inadequate and unsuccessful system” where 16 per cent of water is at risk, and one third of the wastewater treatment plants run by the 34 local authorities are “suspect”.

And while all that’s going on, 18,000 people have to boil their water before they consume it. Imagine those householders’ faces when they get their first water charges bill.

And of course all this was happening when the country was awash with money in the days of the last boys in office.

Funnily enough, it was Fianna Fáil’s environment spokesman Barry Cowen who described the yet-to-be-formally-unveiled-to-the-public-by-way-of-a-bill behemoth, as a “white elephant, a bonus-driven quango”.

Consultation
He asked the Minister how he could expect the public and politicians to engage in the public consultation process when "there has been no consultation" from Government.

Deriding claims that the process would be “open, transparent, consultative and all-encompassing”, he said the public had been “left in the dark as the secrecy continues”.

But there won’t always be secrecy. The Minister pointed out the utility will be “completely open to the freedom of information process”.

Cowen noted the Government’s claim that it would save €2 billion by 2021, but then pointed out that the savings would actually be the water charges. The bills will arrive in October. How much? That’ll be known “in good time”.

And how will it all be worked out? Well, in Minister-speak: “It’s a two-phase process. There will be inputs from Government but we have to await a determination from our soundings with Eurostat of how much money will ensure this State company remains off balance sheet.”

And there’s more. The bills will be worked out, as promised, in “good time” to “allow people to make the budgetary adjustments that will be necessitated when charging for water commences at the end of this year and bills arrive next year”.

There’s nothing like plain talking when giving bad news.