On the introduction of water metering and why I am against it.
01.26.10
According to a breaking news report on the Irish Times site yesterday, the government intends to raise 1 billion euro from next year by metering water usage. This was made known, apparently, by John Gormley during an RTE interview. I’m absolutely fascinated that one of our ministers can be so unutterably dumb; I long ago came to terms with the total and utter lack of vision.
Let me be clear. Water metering is a good idea in certain circumstances:
- areas of major drought
- areas where water provision services are extremely good
Right now, neither circumstance really applies to Ireland. Ireland’s key issue is monumental mismanagement of the water infrastructure over scores of years. We are taking mismanagement on a scale that makes the underinvestment in Irish Rail look like Toytown economics. Services are not extremely good and lately, they have not even been adequate.
John Gormley is not the person who is even remotely capable of understanding how best to rectify this situation. Unfortunately, John Gormley is what we have got.
According to the Irish Times:
Speaking on RTÉ’s Morning Ireland, Minister Gormley described as “shocking” the percentage or water which is lost annually due to defective pipes, and said that situation must be rectified immediately
The situation has been shocking for years. I know that as recently as 2005 – wait, that’s five years ago – the estimated loss of water through inadequate infrastructure and leaking pipes was about 40%. I want you to consider that figure very carefully as you remember that for the past 2 weeks, many parts of Dublin have been without running water because the infrastructure is old, it leaks and in freezing weather, it breaks.
When John Gormley says it should be rectified immediately, he probably doesn’t have a clue how much work will be involved in doing this but it will involved digging up a huge number of pipes in the main urban areas and replacing them. We don’t have the money to do it now, and I doubt we have the stomach for the disruption it will cause. However, at some stage, it will have to be done.
Earlier today the minister announced that investment in replacing defective water mains will increase to €300million over the next three years.
Remember, when he tries to make you believe that this is a lot of money, that it is a small drop in the ocean compared to the amount of money that is being poured into the banking system at this time. Which you will also pay for but the fruits are unlikely to ever come back to you.
John Gormley has been in government for 3 years now I believe. I would be interested to know why this wasn’t done before major problems hit the biggest city in the country. It’s probably the same answer as is common for many things in this country. Do nothing until your back is against the wall.
From 2001 to about 2007, the country was raking in tax take. Why was it not done then? Well some of it was. Fingal County Council eventually had to fix a mains under Forrest Road in Swords because it was constantly bursting. It was constantly bursting because the traffic on the road above it had sky rocketed owing to a lot of development feeding onto that road.
“We’ve taken the decision now to introduce water metering in this country which will be done on the basis of an allocation of water to each household and you pay above that,” said Mr Gormley.”We are the only country in Europe where we don’t have water metering and where we don’t charge domestically. That needs to be reversed and reversed as soon as possible,” he added.
We have not taking any decision. It is being pushed on us by a revenue hungry government, desperate for any additional methods by which they can extract money out of a tax paying population who have already been seriously screwed over in the past 2 years. We are the only country in Europe with a lot of things and without a lot of things. But I don’t see the Green Party and their Fianna Fail overlords rushing to do anything much about 1) public transport in Dublin – that ambles along at a particularly pedestrian rate – or tenancy legislation, something which is crushingly necessary particularly in light of the screwed up property market. Also, if John Gormley wanted to introduce water metering, he really should be introducing more positive reasons to do so. Being the odd one out is not a good reason.
Irish people are used to being the odd ones out. We have perennially suffered from poorly planned infrastructure, we are the only country dumb enough to introduce management companies in apartment complexes and private estates without a valid legal structure in place beforehand, we are the only country with a capital city completely hamstrung by fecked up semi-privatised public transport which even now still doesn’t have integrated ticketing. We are the only country with a lot of things but the only things that the government appears to be interested in fixing right now are methods by which they can continue to fleece you.
Each household is to get an allocation he tells us above. Well, supposing the overwhelming majority of households live within that ration, where does the one billion come from? I’ll tell you. The allocation will be reduced. Nor is it clear on what basis the allocation should be calculated.
Mr Gormley said that it costs about €1billion per annum to treat water for public consumption and that the Government would seek to recoup the cost of this through metering. He also called the abolition of water charges by previous governments as “nonsensical and spineless.”
We’ll come to funding for the one billion in a moment. However, for what it’s worth, I would consider the introduction of water charges to be delusional and misplaced. I also consider the motivations to be somewhat misguided and I will come to that in a moment.
Unfortunately, members of the opposition are being equally delusional. From Fine Gael:
Fine Gael today welcomed the additional funds for replacing defective water mains but said the Government is not taking steps to fully address the underlying problems of Ireland’s water infrastructure.
The party’s environment spokesman Phil Hogan called on Minister Gormley to set up a new water utility company to take over responsibility for water investment and maintenance management from the local authorities.
There is a monumental risk here and it is this. If you set up a utility like this and metering is already in place, it becomes very easy for a cash desperate government, possibly under duress from, for example, an international monetary organisation, to privatise this.
Water privatisation has been a fiasco in a number of places. Problems in the UK are well documented. I don’t know if John Gormley or Phil Hogan read French but if they do, L’Empire de L’Eau by Yvan Stefanovitch – I have a copy – is a massively illuminating look at the problems related to privatised companies providing water supply services in France. Put simply, at the time of publication, many, many French municipal authorities were in the process of municipalising their water supply systems because they could do it more efficiently than the private companies and issues relating to corruption because less problematic. If you read French and can lay your hands on it, Stefanovitch’s book is well worth a read.
Ireland is not short of water, not in the way that parts of Spain and Portugal, and indeed, most of the south of France at certain times of the year, nor, for example, Cyprus. But we do not manage it effectively and this is what needs to change. The issues relate to pipe infrastructure. Charging you and me isn’t going to cause anyone to fix this problem and until it is done, you cannot argue the toss on water charges and metering on environmental grounds at all, the Green Party’s apparent raison d’etre.
Nor do we really want to go and make the mistakes other parts of Europe have made in terms of water privatisation and yet there is a huge risk that some idiot party might risk doing it at some stage in the future. It is not in your interest or mine that this happens. Remember Eircom. It won’t be hard.
One of the key problems, however, relates to how we fund local authorities and the knock on effects it has elsewhere. Put simply, the local authorities are constantly squeezed of two key assets:
- effective management
- adequate resources
I’m of the opinion that local government needs to be reformed and in a massive way. We need to look at reducing national/central tax and introducing a local income tax. France manages with this quite effectively. Many things could be regionalised and funding diverted away from central government provided sensible management goes hand in hand with it. The history of spending budget lest you lose it needs to be killed off. Prudent councils shouldn’t be punished for being prudent but every service in the country gets that one.
If John Gormley, instead of spouting the “we’re the only country in Europe that don’t have water metering card” to sort out this mess came up with a wide ranging and visionary plan to sort out local services and authorities, it is entirely possible that we’d get far better local services and better budgeting for local needs instead of centrally allocated funds and we might have a decent water infrastructure.
Unfortunately, he just proved again that the next time you have an opportunity, you should note vote for the Green Party.