From the outset, the establishment of Irish Water was a shambles, writes Lucinda Creighton
Policians and pundits have pondered the explosion of public anger over Irish Water. They have wondered aloud why, after six years of tax increases and spending cuts, has the idea of a water charge, something that is often considered fairly standard in other countries, driven Irish citizens onto the streets in their hundreds of thousands. What is it about Irish Water that has triggered such a virulent reaction across all strata of society?
To my mind, there is not one simple answer to these questions. The Taoiseach famously stated a couple of weeks ago that “this is not about water”. The implication here was clearly that this is something sinister, a deliberate whipping up of emotion by extremists to damage a hard-working Government. This narrative may suit a defensive, irritated Taoiseach, but it is far from the full story.
Enda Kenny is right when he says that this is not just about water – it is about much more than that. It is about cronyism. It is about an arrogant government. It is about sheer incompetence. It is about the waste of hardworking taxpayers’ money. And it is about secret deals and a return to the Bertie Ahern style of doing business. In short, Irish Water epitomises all that has gone wrong with this Government.
From the outset, the establishment of Irish Water was a shambles. The legislation to establish the entity was rammed through the Dáil in a few hours on the last sitting day of the year on December 18 2013.
Contempt
This act, more than any other, showed the sheer contempt that the responsible minister, Phil Hogan, along with his Government colleagues, had for the Dáil, its members and, most importantly, the people who elect them to safeguard the public interest.
The minister was not interested in engaging in debate, refused to accept amendments and ignored the warnings that TDs such as Billy Timmins and Denis Naughten made on the day.
A few short weeks later this contempt for the Irish people was displayed with flashing neon lights when the CEO of Irish Water John Tierney, the former assistant Manager for Kilkenny City Council, Phil Hogan’s hometown, let slip in an interview with Sean O’Rourke on RTÉ Radio One that rather hefty sums of money had been paid to ‘consultants’ by Irish Water.
When Mr Hogan was questioned about this, he became irate. Instead of explaining and defending the fees, or alternatively criticising Irish Water for what appeared to be a gross waste of taxpayers’ money, he simply attacked the media for daring to question him and insisted that it is not his role to “micromanage” Irish Water.
In reality, when a minister takes in excess of €1 billion euros of taxpayers’ money to set up a new semi-state company, that is precisely what he is expected to do. I mentioned in the Dáil last week that, in total, Irish Water collects all of its income directly from taxpayers and the bill looks like this so far:
- €250 million borrowed from the National Pensions Reserve Fund in 2013;
- €240 million collected from the proceeds of property tax in 2014;
- €490 million gained from the Local Government Fund in 2014;
- It will take €190 million from businesses, large and small, every year;
- It will tax homeowners to collect €200 million each year until 2018 and we are unsure what the sum will be after that.
It is the duty of the Minister for the Environment to ensure that those monies are efficiently and effectively spent and he is directly responsible where taxpayers’ money is squandered.
Thus Mr Hogan’s flippant and arrogant remark enraged ordinary decent people all over the country.
The greatest scandal of the Irish Water fiasco is the secret deal which was carried out in June 2013 between Enda Kenny’s Government and the trade unions. This was a deal conducted behind closed doors which has added €2 billion to the costs of establishing Irish Water. It was a deal done under the guise of the ‘Irish Water Consultative Group’.
Goal
The Government’s goal here was to establish how they could buy silence from the unions. This fact becomes clear from the membership of this forum, which involved union officials from SIPTU, IMPACT and the TEEU, Liam Beirne from The Irish Congress of Trade Unions (ICTU) as well as Water Services Transition office (WSTO), the Department of the Environment and the Local Government Management Agency.
The document produced by this secret group of vested interests spoke of the development of “an overarching framework” to facilitate collaboration between Irish Water and local authorities.
This was a stitch-up to ensure a 12-year cosy deal between the local authorities and Irish Water. The result is that Irish Water has become a super-quango, with 4,000 staff members, rather than the 2,000 it requires. It has become a sprawling monster – inefficient, unresponsive and unmanageable.
The Government, through its cosy ‘consultative group’, may have bought industrial peace and silenced the trade unions – Bertie Ahern style – but it has ravaged the taxpayer in the process. This secret stitch-up will cost Irish taxpayers, already at the end of their financial tether, an additional €2 billion for the next 12 years.
This is daylight robbery, once again based on secret deals between the Government and the unions. It is simply outrageous yet we see little sign of repentance from Government ministers, just the same old platitudes about “communications problems”. Once again, the buck is passed to unelected officials rather than accepting responsibility for their own nasty deal.
The fact is that nothing has changed in terms of how we do business and how we make policy in this country. As soon as the troika left town at the end of 2013, the usual vested interests started to circle the wagons. Instead of batting them away, we heard the same soothing noises that came from Bertie in the good old times.
So when Enda Kenny said it was “not about water”, he was right. It was about the lazy and secretive way in which this new utility was established.
It was about the sheer contempt that has been shown for decent and hard-working Irish citizens who can take no more. Above all it was about the arrogant, condescending way in which Government ministers now speak down to the ‘little people’.
The good news is that the Irish people have had enough. The democratic revolution may well, finally, be on the way.
