Irish Water

ardmacha

jmayo wrote: »

Yes we know they are differences in the projects, but get this salient not so little fact, PPARS involved rather large consultancy company(ies) who in no way refused the gravy train as it passed them by and the gravy train was ultimately coming out of the pockets of the taxpayers.

Consultancy companies are not charities, if you ask them to do something they will and will bill you. If you haven't a clue what you are at, and refuse to admit this, and keep changing the spec etc then they will get a lot of work out of you. Which is why I said that you need someone with the judgement to ask the right question.

And what makes the Irish water situation concerning is that there is no real external financial oversight and C&AG or PAC are not allowed investigate we could be facing even more wastage of public funds.

Fair comment. The only problem with the C&AG is that it is after the event when the horse has bolted. The PAC are as much interested in publicity as performance.

BTW do you mind me asking if you work for a major consultancy firm ?

Whatever you say, say nothing.

So you are blaming the media and public for the fact these bodies do not publish the information ?
And shure if anyone speaks up they are ranting, right ?
You do know that newspapers and politicans have requested information and it has not been forthcoming ?

In general terms people ask for bits of information, but there is no coherent demand for better information processes.

I also notice how you are coming down very much on the side of giving the benefit of the doubt to a pretty large non transparent quangoe and some very large computer and consultancy firms.

BTW anytime someone mentions Accenture I always remember that esteemed organisation of which they were and ofspring.
Lucky for them they changed their name. :rolleyes:

And shure isn't Ernst & Young named as another of the consultants.
BTW did they ever explain how they audited the Anglo accounts ?

Feck sake they should have included Deloite for the expertise they gardnered with PPARS.

I am not a particular admirer of these organisations, but still think that IT has the possibility of making an organisation more effective and so paying for its installation. And if PPARS was conducted today, after Croke Pk etc had harmonised things, it might well succeed much better with the same consultants.

Sheldons Brain

jmayo wrote: »

Well maybe more than a few people remember another taxpayer funded information technology venture which involved some consultants which degenerated into a cushy gravy train for said same consultants and a black hole for taxpayers money.

And perhaps one of the reasons that Irish Water can't be investigated by the Comptroller and Auditor General (or Publi Accountants Committee) is that some people did not like how that C&AG showed up the complete wastage, and more importantly where and who benefitted, when asked to investigate PPARS.

Or perhaps you and a few others would rather us forget about PPARS.

Let us not forget PPARS, indeed.

From the C&G report, the problems seem to have originated in the HSE:

• A complex governance structure defined by a consensus style of decision-making.
  translation - couldn't make a decision

• Substantial variations in pay and conditions, organisation structures, cultures and processes which existed between and within agencies, the full extent of which was not known before the commencement of the project.
  translation - they hadn't a clue what they were at

• The lack of readiness in the health agencies to adopt the change management agenda.
  translation - they couldn't be arsed changing

• An inability to definitively ‘freeze the business blueprint or business requirements at a particular point in time in accordance with best practice.
  translation - they kept changing what they wanted

• A failure to comprehensively follow through on its pilot site implementation strategy before advancing with the roll out to other HSE areas
  translation - whatever the plan they could be arsed implementing itƒ

Irish Water should be new start and not start with these problems, despite the many calls just to leave the arrangements of the 31 local authorities in place.

Pete_Cavan

listermint wrote: »

Well questions are starting to be asked, I and I hope other councils are looking for similar answers.

This whole thing smells and it smells badly.

http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/rebel-council-to-fold-today-over-irish-water-29911408.html

Pure misdirection from Donegal County Council. Water infrastructure is an asset in an accounting sense only for CCs (unless they are using treatment plants and pumping stations as collateral for loans, which I am sure they are prevented from doing). If anything, they stand to gain by having the maintenance and operational costs removed from them.

golfwallah

Pete_Cavan wrote: »

Pure misdirection from Donegal County Council. Water infrastructure is an asset in an accounting sense only for CCs (unless they are using treatment plants and pumping stations as collateral for loans, which I am sure they are prevented from doing). If anything, they stand to gain by having the maintenance and operational costs removed from them.

Agreed! Infrastructure that produce costs but no income are "assets" on a balance sheet only. If you regard anything that takes money out of your pocket as a liability, in reality, they are a liability and councils should be glad to see the back of it. Given the amount of debt burden on county councils (almost €1b nationwide), most of them would be insolvent were it not for Government / general taxpayer backing.

Moreover, the minister has the power to wind them up if they don't agree to strike a rate based on their budget (as compiled by their own officials).

So all this huffing and puffing by councils in relation to water infrastructure is perhaps the last sting of a dying wasp set up that was not really up to the job in the first place.

My only hope is that I.W. will be made more accountable than the councils were, so that Joe Public gets to know where his/her tax Euros are going - starting with John Tierney's appearance before the joint Oireachtas Environment Committee today. But, this will require much more open reporting processes that we have had heretofore.

I wonder if any of our politicians have the stomach for the long haul work required to make this happen.

jmayo

Sheldons Brain wrote: »

Let us not forget PPARS, indeed.

From the C&G report, the problems seem to have originated in the HSE:

• A complex governance structure defined by a consensus style of decision-making.
  translation - couldn't make a decision

• Substantial variations in pay and conditions, organisation structures, cultures and processes which existed between and within agencies, the full extent of which was not known before the commencement of the project.
  translation - they hadn't a clue what they were at

• The lack of readiness in the health agencies to adopt the change management agenda.
  translation - they couldn't be arsed changing

• An inability to definitively ‘freeze the business blueprint or business requirements at a particular point in time in accordance with best practice.
  translation - they kept changing what they wanted

• A failure to comprehensively follow through on its pilot site implementation strategy before advancing with the roll out to other HSE areas
  translation - whatever the plan they could be arsed implementing it႒

Irish Water should be new start and not start with these problems, despite the many calls just to leave the arrangements of the 31 local authorities in place.

Hey I know damm well that most of the fault lay with the project owners and as another poster siad consultancy companies are not charities.
But I always wonder if the project managers are rewarded from said same consultancy companies for their continued patronage even if the plug should be pulled.
Of course I am not saying that this was the reason they awarded the project or tender to the same supplier in the first place.
Of course the other thing is that no one wants to accept responsibilty or make a decision.

And even if I am not fan of the big consultancy companies, whose highly rewarded work I have had the joy of witnessing :rolleyes:, most all of the blame for this lies at the feet of the public body issuing the contracts.

Looking past the 50million, there are serious questions as to the links between the ex city manager and the other execs who happened to have worked for a company that did disproportionately well out of another public project that never got off the ground.
Conincidence ?

Guramoogah

Is €50 million just a drop in the ocean? I've got some advice for Irish Water that I'll offer to them at a reduced rate, say €45 million. Where do I apply??

mariaalice

In a nut shell why cant most of these services be provided efficiently why do they seem to get bogged down, even something you would imagine would be simple such as driving licences, the new privatized service... 7 weeks after correctly applying still no driving licences and no explanation.

Is there something unique about the provision of public services and such.

carpejugulum

mariaalice wrote: »

In a nut shell why cant most of these services be provided efficiently why do they seem to get bogged down, even something you would imagine would be simple such as driving licences, the new privatized service... 7 weeks after correctly applying still no driving licences and no explanation.

Is there something unique about the provision of public services and such.

Yes, it's done by public service. In other words people handling a lot of money taken from people without their consent.

mariaalice

A bit off topic, the driving licences service has been privatised and seem to be less efficient that before.

Lano Lynn

all aboard the gravey boat!!!!!!!!!
endas speach on the end of the era of greed is just water under the bridge.
the people who run this country have learned absolutly nothing from the mess that was the past 20yrs.
............the Repugnant of Ireland:mad:

feargale

There'a a firm in Co. Tyrone that does bottled water. How many months' supply of their stuff, delivered to the door of each and every one of us, could we buy for €180 million? Just asking.

Phoebas

mariaalice wrote: »

A bit off topic, the driving licences service has been privatised and seem to be less efficient that before.

I thought it was transferred to the RSA?

carpejugulum

mariaalice wrote: »

A bit off topic, the driving licences service has been privatised and seem to be less efficient that before.

not less efficient as subsidises stopped

Yes, even driving licenses were subsidized by the tax payer.

taytobreath

Schools are next

golfwallah

I think Fintan O'Toole pretty much hit the nail on the head on RTE's Prime Time tonight, when he pointed out the lack of accountability before money is spent on Irish Water or any other state sponsored project.

He argues that I.W. CEO, John Tierney, has a long track record of high spending on consultants from his time with Dublin City Council (re Poolbeg Incinerator Project), with inconclusive results and questions whether he was the right man for the I.W. top job. I was far from impressed by the clips of Mr. Tierney's appearance before the Oireachtas Committee today - he kept looking down at his notes, quoting reams of facts and figures in his rehearsed response format to questions from TDs.

O'Toole's point about the need for transparency in advance of such huge spending of public moneys rings true to me. It would be far better if the top people in public bodies like I.W. justified their spending plans in advance to public representatives rather than after the event, when it's too late to do anything about it.

It's not up on RTE Player yet but here's what he had to say earlier today in a similar vein: http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/energy-and-resources/top-appointment-at-irish-water-does-not-suggest-thirst-for-public-service-reform-1.1653894

StupidLikeAFox

Most people have seen the headline figure of €50m and been outraged, but what do people believe is a fair price to pay consultants/contractors in the setting up of a company of this size? €10m? €25m?

Bear in mind that consultants in this sense aren't people who come in and write a report. They are the software developers, IT specialists, training staff, organisational change staff and so on, i.e. people who are actually doing the work to get the organisation set up - and there are hundreds of them

theenergy

good point StupidLikeAFox

however it is the jobs for the big boys club out there

why were they not put out to tender??

ednwireland

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

Most people have seen the headline figure of €50m and been outraged, but what do people believe is a fair price to pay consultants/contractors in the setting up of a company of this size? €10m? €25m?

Bear in mind that consultants in this sense aren't people who come in and write a report. They are the software developers, IT specialists, training staff, organisational change staff and so on, i.e. people who are actually doing the work to get the organisation set up - and there are hundreds of them

the whole point of giving bord gais the contract was that they all ready had systems in place and it was just a matter of changing the logo (or at least that was the implication - these things are never that simple) at the end of the day BG pipe stuff to houses, charge a standing charge, and charge per metered unit against a database of customers.

thats the point i have no idea if the amounts charge were realistic or not but it seems that systems are been set up from scratch which isnt what the point of giving a contract to BG was sold to the public on.

and from the outside it looks like a gravy train ( to be honest its all a matter of optics anyway but imagine that the 180 million total in setting up IW was spent on fixing the infrastructure)

Gumbo

theenergy wrote: »

why were they not put out to tender??

According to the Indo, only 4 contracts were not put out to tender.

They used a company which was already in use by BG. Isint this what the public wanted though? Less wastage in tender advertisements, more pooled/shared resources?

ednwireland

kceire wrote: »

According to the Indo, only 4 contracts were not put out to tender.

They used a company which was already in use by BG. Isint this what the public wanted though? Less wastage in tender advertisements, more pooled/shared resources?

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/welsh-water-spent-12m-in-contrast-to-irish-water-s-expected-80m-1.1654847

12 miilion spent setting up a company to manage welsh water, guess what though set up as not for profit
thats the point there doesnt seem to be any cost savings useing BG everything is been built from scratch fast (which costs more)

Gumbo

ednwireland wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/welsh-water-spent-12m-in-contrast-to-irish-water-s-expected-80m-1.1654847

12 miilion spent setting up a company to manage welsh water, guess what though set up as not for profit
thats the point there doesnt seem to be any cost savings useing BG everything is been built from scratch fast (which costs more)

Non profit, in Ireland, soes that exist

im not defending them by any means, but Welsh Water was set up in 2001, what would the real value of that be in todays terms compared to our current value of €80m as per your article?

Phoebas

kceire wrote: »

Non profit, in Ireland, soes that exist

im not defending them by any means, but Welsh Water was set up in 2001, what would the real value of that be in todays terms compared to our current value of €80m as per your article?

Welsh water took over from another water company and the billing and asset management systems came with it, so it isn't comparing apples with apples (as the CEO of Welsh Water was keen to point out on the radio yesterday)

Phoebas

ednwireland wrote: »

http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/welsh-water-spent-12m-in-contrast-to-irish-water-s-expected-80m-1.1654847

12 miilion spent setting up a company to manage welsh water, guess what though set up as not for profit
thats the point there doesnt seem to be any cost savings useing BG everything is been built from scratch fast (which costs more)

Irish Water say that using some of BGE's IT system have saved it €58m in software licences alone.

http://www.rte.ie/news/2014/0114/497648-irish-water/

antoobrien

kceire wrote: »

im not defending them by any means, but Welsh Water was set up in 2001, what would the real value of that be in todays terms compared to our current value of €80m as per your article?

It's also worth pointing out that the integration of the local services into a single umbrella organisation (part of what IW is doing) happened in 1973 and the creation of the current incarnation of Welsh Water is the result of renationalisation of the privatised water services (as well as the spinning off of an electrical company that they had bought).

Floppybits

StupidLikeAFox wrote: »

Most people have seen the headline figure of €50m and been outraged, but what do people believe is a fair price to pay consultants/contractors in the setting up of a company of this size? €10m? €25m?

Bear in mind that consultants in this sense aren't people who come in and write a report. They are the software developers, IT specialists, training staff, organisational change staff and so on, i.e. people who are actually doing the work to get the organisation set up - and there are hundreds of them

Agree 100% with this, however IW's poor handling of this is what is causing the outrage. What should have been done is break down of how the 50 million was spent. Most peoples idea of a consultant, is someone in a suit who goes to a few meetings and gives their advice on this or that in their area of expertise and then collects their cheque. But what the headling figure doesnt include is how much was spent on hardware such as servers, how much was spent on software and how much was spent on getting the technicians, database analysts and systems specialists in to actually set up the technology.

Gumbo

Floppybits wrote: »

Agree 100% with this, however IW's poor handling of this is what is causing the outrage. What should have been done is break down of how the 50 million was spent. Most peoples idea of a consultant, is someone in a suit who goes to a few meetings and gives their advice on this or that in their area of expertise and then collects their cheque. But what the headling figure doesnt include is how much was spent on hardware such as servers, how much was spent on software and how much was spent on getting the technicians, database analysts and systems specialists in to actually set up the technology.

But didnt they already give a breakdown, with exactly what company got what, IBM's bill of €44.7m comes to mind!

antoobrien

kceire wrote: »

But didnt they already give a breakdown, with exactly what company got what, IBM's bill of €44.7m comes to mind!

As well as €17.2m to Accenture for additional IT related services.

http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/energy-and-resources/where-the-irish-water-consultancy-fees-are-going-1.1655358

carpejugulum

The funny thing is that the outrage started after the money was spent, not when it was allocated to be spent.
In other words, it was already known a long time ago that this much or maybe more would be spent.

golfwallah

carpejugulum wrote: »

The funny thing is that the outrage started after the money was spent, not when it was allocated to be spent.
In other words, it was already known a long time ago that this much or maybe more would be spent.

The whole point of the current brouhaha about Irish Water is not how much money was spent but what it was spent on and the fact that nobody, except maybe IW insiders, seemed to know how much of it was going on consultancy (until after it was spent / committed).

People are rightly annoyed at what looks like a very opaque process for keeping people uninformed about what is going on in Irish Water.

The approach of "get lump sum budget approval and, sure, we can tell them all later what we spent it on" just isn't good enough in the "post celtic tiger" era, especially when we were promised openness before the last election.

This "mushroom management" style (feed them sh1t and keep 'em in the dark), posing as professional management and overseen by a minister who "doesn't micro-manage", just won't do!

It's understandable that the minister doesn't need or want to get involved in the day to day running of IW, but he is still accountable to the taxpayers for the spending of public moneys. Therefore, he should ensure that transparent business processes are in place so that we have high quality accountability for our tax Euros - before and after they are spent.

Gumbo

golfwallah wrote: »

The whole point of the current brouhaha about Irish Water is not how much money was spent but what it was spent on and the fact that nobody, except maybe IW insiders, seemed to know how much of it was going on consultancy (until after it was spent / committed).

People are rightly annoyed at what looks like a very opaque process for keeping people uninformed about what is going on in Irish Water.

The approach of "get lump sum budget approval and, sure, we can tell them all later what we spent it on" just isn't good enough in the "post celtic tiger" era, especially when we were promised openness before the last election.

This "mushroom management" style (feed them sh1t and keep 'em in the dark), posing as professional management and overseen by a minister who "doesn't micro-manage", just won't do!

It's understandable that the minister doesn't need or want to get involved in the day to day running of IW, but he is still accountable to the taxpayers for the spending of public moneys. Therefore, he should ensure that transparent business processes are in place so that we have high quality accountability for our tax Euros - before and after they are spent.

The top tiers of government knew about it. Edna Kenny has already announced that he knew the budget was going to be spent.

Lano Lynn

the councils etc are concerned about the transfer of water related assets to IW,and waste collection privatised,the rsa controling transport etc,now that their managers don't have responsibility for such a signifigant sectors will they have their renumeration packages reduced accordingly?.........not likely pixieheads .......:(

golfwallah

kceire wrote: »

The top tiers of government knew about it. Edna Kenny has already announced that he knew the budget was going to be spent.

This row is about the large sums being spent on consultancy, which came as a bolt out of the blue to most of the electorate.

Taoiseach, Enda Kenny, made no announcement that he knew the size of the consultancy and minister, Phil Hogan, flatly denies it: http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/enda-kenny-phil-hogan-will-not-be-asked-to-resign-over-irish-water-debacle-29919141.html

And the Taoiseach & minister saying there is no secrecy and making IW more open and publicly accountable are two different things entirely. If we had transparency there would have been no surprises about the consultancy spend.

I would think that, had the public had been made aware of it in advance and the reasons why it was necessary, there would have been little or no controversy. People are genuinely offended because the whole thing smacks of friends being looked after and a total disregard for taxpayer feelings about how their taxes are spent. So regardless of promises of change in how things would be done, the current Government are continuing to bulldoze things through in the time honoured unprofessional manner as their predecessors.

DuckHook

I think they need to explain how they are spending this money on "IT Systems" when board gais would already have something in place that could be leveraged and expanded upon.

Board gais's computers have no problem getting my bill out to me btw so this whole thing smacks of high ranking civil servants having their heads turned by accenture, ibm etc throwing technical jargon at them and as they dont have a breeze whats being said while they nod and make mm-hmm noises.

Just give a breakdown on what systems were created and how much each part cost, simples.

toxicity234

DuckHook wrote: »

I think they need to explain how they are spending this money on "IT Systems" when board gais would already have something in place that could be leveraged and expanded upon.

Board gais's computers have no problem getting my bill out to me btw so this whole thing smacks of high ranking civil servants having their heads turned by accenture, ibm etc throwing technical jargon at them and as they dont have a breeze whats being said while they nod and make mm-hmm noises.

Just give a breakdown on what systems were created and how much each part cost, simples.

Board Gais has 145000 customers. Irish water will have 1.8 million.
If the I.T. Bills is only 50 million it was a great deal for Irish water.

Floppybits

kceire wrote: »

But didnt they already give a breakdown, with exactly what company got what, IBM's bill of €44.7m comes to mind!

Yep they gave a break down of what each company got what but what we dont know is what did that money buy, I hope it wasnt just some guys in suits attending a few meetings and giving their expert opinion. I am guessing that the 44.7 million that was paid to IBM was a combination of hardware purchasing like servers and the installation and set up of these servers and I am guessing some sort of support contract for these servers. I also notice that Oracle got some money as well, so I will guess that this money covered the cost of their Database software and also for the installation and set up of the databases.

Now I would be angry if the 50million was spent on just a few experts attending a few meetings. I would accept the 50 million if it was spent on the getting the technical infrastructure and get the technical systems in place.

DuckHook

toxicity234 wrote: »

Board Gais has 145000 customers. Irish water will have 1.8 million.
If the I.T. Bills is only 50 million it was a great deal for Irish water.

It costs next to nothing to expand a database from 145000 to 1.8 million so im not sure how this can be used to justify an IT spend of 50 million.

They should give a breakdown of what software/hardware and what systems were implemented if its justifiable.

Whats wanted is for irish water to give a transparent explanation backed up by solid figures as to what was done.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

I think they need to explain how they are spending this money on "IT Systems" when board gais would already have something in place that could be leveraged and expanded upon.

The proposal for Bord Gais to have to sell off the energy supply arm of the business was known at the time that Irish Water was being set up, so they knew damn well that they were going to lose access to the current billing systems if this sale was going to go ahead.

DuckHook wrote: »

Board gais's computers have no problem getting my bill out to me btw so this whole thing smacks of high ranking civil servants having their heads turned by accenture, ibm etc throwing technical jargon at them and as they dont have a breeze whats being said while they nod and make mm-hmm noises.

They didn't have their heads turned, IW approached IBM & Accenture to provide this capability. They knew damn well how much it was going to cost going in because they had already done this exercise before. The reason they had to do it again is that they knew that they were going to lose access to the systems - a fact that is being conveniently overlooked.

DuckHook wrote: »

Just give a breakdown on what systems were created and how much each part cost, simples.

The costs of software licenses are based on the numbers of processors/cores used, so without knowing the exact hardware & software specifications - information that should never be released for IT security reasons (one really shouldn't want to make life easier for cyber-criminals) - that's very hard to guess.

DuckHook

antoobrien wrote: »

The proposal for Bord Gais to have to sell off the energy supply arm of the business was known at the time that Irish Water was being set up, so they knew damn well that they were going to lose access to the current billing systems if this sale was going to go ahead.


They didn't have their heads turned, IW approached IBM & Accenture to provide this capability. They knew damn well how much it was going to cost going in because they had already done this exercise before. The reason they had to do it again is that they knew that they were going to lose access to the systems - a fact that is being conveniently overlooked.



The costs of software licenses are based on the numbers of processors/cores used, so without knowing the exact hardware & software specifications - information that should never be released for IT security reasons (one really shouldn't want to make life easier for cyber-criminals) - that's very hard to guess.

So what your saying is the government and public servants handled this in such a way that it would be the least cost effective solution all round.

-People in Government were aware they were losing the it systems that were in place

-TD's then Claim that Irish water should have used these systems even though they were aware they were losing it.

-Inviting companies that were already in place and had already set up similar systems to start from scratch on this project.

- Irish water resisted all attempts for information on this spending for the last year

- Now Irish water are being criticised for this spend even though the government was apparently aware at some level that they would have had to create an entire infrastructure.

- Irish water still yet to release satisfactory information on whats been spent .

- Cyber criminals...lol.

So yet again we have irish taxpayers money being wasted and are expected to just accept it.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

It costs next to nothing to expand a database from 145000 to 1.8 million so im not sure how this can be used to justify an IT spend of 50 million.

I'm going to assume that you are missing a 0, because BG have a damn sight more than 145k customers.

Btw your calculations are very wrong, the expansion would not be from 1.45m to 1.8m, it would be from 1.45m to over 3.25m - even if they were going to keep the CC&B system, which will be sold with BGE. This is because anybody who has dealt with Bord Gais for both gas and electricity should know that they create individual accounts for each service (there's a technical reason for this).

We're talking about an equivalent to a new Banking IT system. For something similar we'd be talking somewhere between 50m & 80m.

DuckHook wrote: »

They should give a breakdown of what software/hardware and what systems were implemented if its justifiable.

No company, public or private, should have to give this out on security grounds.

DuckHook wrote: »

Whats wanted is for irish water to give a transparent explanation backed up by solid figures as to what was done.

From comments being made that's an idiotic idea that would only cause more baseless outrage based on a total lack of comprehension of what's involved.

I was involved in an RFP for an enterprise system of similar size but lower complexity (it was a single "application", IBM are setting up several including but not limited to finance, human resources and regulatory affairs) three years ago. The estimated cost for one set of hardware and software (an environment) was about approx €8m, without any other work (i.e. just to ship the hardware and software to the customer).

Sounds like IBM are screwing Irish Water doesn't it? What if I said that they were going to have to buy a minimum of three such environments - one main (production) environment, one live backup and at least one testing environment (to try to minimise disruption when maintaining the software, though this doesn't always go to plan as any Ulsterbank Customer can attest). Depending on the nature of the business there is often could be a 4th or even a 5th environment for development of new features that are rolled out to customers, but I'll assume 3 environments.

So going on three year old figures for a similar sized system, we're talking soemting in the range of €20m-€25m, just for delivery of the CC&B system. They're also delivering finance (i.e accounting), human resources and regulatory affairs, asset management and capital expenditure systems.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

So what your saying is the government and public servants handled this in such a way that it would be the least cost effective solution all round.

Sure looks like it

DuckHook wrote: »

-People in Government were aware they were losing the it systems that were in place

They should have done

DuckHook wrote: »

-TD's then Claim that Irish water should have used these systems even though they were aware they were losing it.

DuckHook wrote: »

-Inviting companies that were already in place and had already set up similar systems to start from scratch on this project.

With the timelines involved, it was their only real option. Setting up these systems is not just a matter of running installers. It takes a lot of work and testing before they can be "let into the wild".

DuckHook wrote: »

- Irish water resisted all attempts for information on this spending for the last year

Given the absolutely reaction based on a total lack of understanding of the situation, I'd say for good reason.

DuckHook wrote: »

- Now Irish water are being criticised for this spend even though the government was apparently aware at some level that they would have had to create an entire infrastructure.

It is brainless isn't it.

DuckHook wrote: »

- Irish water still yet to release satisfactory information on whats been spent .

€44m to IBM & the headline list of systems implemented is more than satisfactory. If one doesn't understand that they they should not be making the next two statements in your list:

DuckHook wrote: »

- Cyber criminals...lol.

The most common cyber attacks are on databases storing personal data, espcially bank & credit card details. You mightn't think anything of it, but then I know enough to be scared any time a company admits to using certain software (e.g. anything released by microsoft, ever).

DuckHook wrote: »

So yet again we have irish taxpayers money being wasted and are expected to just accept it.

There is NO evidence that taxpayer's money is being wasted. In fact just the opposite, it looks like money well spent.

Floppybits

antoobrien wrote: »

I'm going to assume that you are missing a 0, because BG have a damn sight more than 145k customers.

Btw your calculations are very wrong, the expansion would not be from 1.45m to 1.8m, it would be from 1.45m to over 3.25m - even if they were going to keep the CC&B system, which will be sold with BGE. This is because anybody who has dealt with Bord Gais for both gas and electricity should know that they create individual accounts for each service (there's a technical reason for this).

We're talking about an equivalent to a new Banking IT system. For something similar we'd be talking somewhere between 50m & 80m.



No company, public or private, should have to give this out on security grounds.



From comments being made that's an idiotic idea that would only cause more baseless outrage based on a total lack of comprehension of what's involved.

I was involved in an RFP for an enterprise system of similar size but lower complexity (it was a single "application", IBM are setting up several including but not limited to finance, human resources and regulatory affairs) three years ago. The estimated cost for one set of hardware and software (an environment) was about approx €8m, without any other work (i.e. just to ship the hardware and software to the customer).

Sounds like IBM are screwing Irish Water doesn't it? What if I said that they were going to have to buy a minimum of three such environments - one main (production) environment, one live backup and at least one testing environment (to try to minimise disruption when maintaining the software, though this doesn't always go to plan as any Ulsterbank Customer can attest). Depending on the nature of the business there is often could be a 4th or even a 5th environment for development of new features that are rolled out to customers, but I'll assume 3 environments.

So going on three year old figures for a similar sized system, we're talking soemting in the range of €20m-€25m, just for delivery of the CC&B system. They're also delivering finance (i.e accounting), human resources and regulatory affairs, asset management and capital expenditure systems.

antoobrien, I would also assume that IBM are not just shipping the hardware and sofware to IW, I would assume that in the contract they are also providing the technical staff to set up and install the hardware and software and also I reckon there would be technical support part written into the contract too.

duckhook, I would be very surprised if that IW are actually going to use the Bord gais database and the only change is to expand the database. I would say IW will probably use the same set up but it will be a totally seperate set up on new hardware and software with maybe some the basic features from the bord gais database but customised for IW.

Could they have done it cheaper maybe but they more than likely I would say that IBM and Oracle already have a footprint in Bord gais and maybe IW went with these 2 because they know what they are getting.

antoobrien

Floppybits wrote: »

Could they have done it cheaper maybe but they more than likely I would say that IBM and Oracle already have a footprint in Bord gais and maybe IW went with these 2 because they know what they are getting.

It's highly unlikely that it could have been done any cheaper, for the simple reason that the IBM & Oracle footprint exists. Companies like IBM & Oracle give volume discounts when ranges of licenses are bought (Oracle were sued by the US government a few years ago, claiming government contracts didn't get the same level of discounts as other deals).

There was a figure of €58m in savings on software licensing mentioned, this will be because of the existing footprints. It's unlikely that alternative vendors could have gotten the same levels of discounts, especially if they changed any of the systems.

Phoebas

DuckHook wrote: »

It costs next to nothing to expand a database from 145000 to 1.8 million

:pac:

DuckHook

Phoebas wrote: »

:pac:

Would you care to elaborate on this and why it would alledgedly cost a large amount expand a customer database system from 145'000 entries to 1.8 million?

DuckHook

antoobrien wrote: »

€44m to IBM & the headline list of systems implemented is more than satisfactory. If one doesn't understand that they they should not be making the next two statements in your list:


There is NO evidence that taxpayer's money is being wasted. In fact just the opposite, it looks like money well spent.

The 44m to IBM and the breakdown obviously isnt satisfactory or we wouldnt be having yet another clusterfu*k justified to both the TD's and the general public.


If there is no perceived wasteage of public money then were is the need for people to be up in front of the public accounts commitee?

Im not trying to argue with you but in all fairness this is being handled pathetically by all involved and the first reaction is to cast aspersions so why didnt irish water and the goverment forsee this and clarify everything.

Phoebas

DuckHook wrote: »

Would you care to elaborate on this and why it would alledgedly cost a large amount expand a customer database system from 145'000 entries to 1.8 million?

Licence costs, hardware costs, operational changes, the fact that a database designed for one scale and purpose may not be suitable for another, the fact that the database is but one element of an IT system ....

jmayo

I presume a fair chunk of the IBM spend includes actual applicaiton licensing and hardware provision ?
Otherwise they are being paid a huge chunk to probably tweek a system they have in place elsewhere.

Looking at some of the items listed against Accenture does cause more concern.

Accenture
€17.2 million
The global consulting firm also won three lucrative Irish Water contracts.

It will help it develop a suite of IT operating procedures across a variety of functions, including systems testing, data modelling and IT security.

Accenture also won the contract to develop what is known within Irish Water as the “target operating model”. This is essentially a list of policies and action plans to establish functions such as recruitment and training, and to advise it on how to design the organisation in terms of what sort of professionals it needs to hire and how many. It will also develop Irish Water’s “guiding principles”.

Lastly, Accenture is being paid to provide overall “programme management” services, including liaising with the Government and officials.

Why are they being paid to develop IT operating procedures when one could presume the existing procedures in BG could be used or built upon.
There is no mention of actual software or hardware, but operating procedures.

And as for developing "target operating model" we are in the realm of waffle.
Again it is policies and action plans.
Does BG not have any of these recruitment or training systems or any people in house that could be temporarily assigned to work on them.

And I can't wait to see how much they are charging for the development of "guiding principles".

At least IBM seem to be developing, configuring and installing the IT infrastructure, whereas Accenture appears to be just high on waffle provision.

DuckHook

Phoebas wrote: »

Licence costs, hardware costs, operational changes, the fact that a database designed for one scale and purpose may not be suitable for another, the fact that the database is but one element of an IT system ....

This is bs..pure and simple any off the shelf database that cant handle 1.8 million entries went out of date in the late 70's and was more commonly known as a filing cabinet.

The amount of products on the market that can do this is massive.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

The 44m to IBM and the breakdown obviously isnt satisfactory or we wouldnt be having yet another clusterfu*k justified to both the TD's and the general public.

The clusterfu*k is unjustified, except by idiots that don't know anything about setting up large enterprises with the appropriate systems.

My first reaction when I saw the combination of Accenture, IBM & Oracle was that they've done well to keep it under 50m (which was amount first reported).

DuckHook wrote: »

If there is no perceived wasteage of public money then were is the need for people to be up in front of the public accounts commitee?

There is no need for this witch hunt, a point that I've been trying to explain.

DuckHook wrote: »

Im not trying to argue with you

Could have fooled me.

DuckHook wrote: »

but in all fairness this is being handled pathetically by all involved.

That I have to disagree with. Irish water have handled it as well as could be expected given the amount of empty vessels banging on about things they don't understand. Their first reaction, to check with the suppliers were they able to give out financial information about the deal, was absolutely correct.

These deals often have non disclosure clauses so to immediately dump the information into the public domain is not a viable option. It's bad enough that the general public don't understand this and refuse to listen to any explanation that isn't confirming that they were screwed over, but it's far worse that people like Shane Ross who should know how these kinds of contracts work want them to do something that could easily have landed them in court for breach of contract.

DuckHook wrote: »

and the first reaction is to cast aspersions so why didnt irish water and the goverment forsee this and clarify everything.

Irish water did, they told the relevant departments how much they thought it was going to take within the confines of the agreements they had to make. After that it's the governments, who gave them their mandate and funding, ball to carry. There's not a lot more that they could have done in the circumstances.

As for the government there's a serious dose of posterior covering going on. Someone in the departments dropped the ball, be it the ministers (who either didn't listen, have forgotten or are running for cover) or the civil servants (who either didn't make sure their bosses understood what was going on or didn't tell them) messed up.

The questions I'd be asking is who leaked this and what axe do they have to grind because the mischaracterisation of an IT capital spend as consultancy fees - which implies that it's an ongoing spend rather than a one off cost - is borderlineline criminal.

antoobrien

DuckHook wrote: »

This is bs..pure and simple any off the shelf database that cant handle 1.8 million entries went out of date in the late 70's

The amount of products on the market that can do this is massive.

Since you know so much about the systems involved, perhaps you'd like to tell us what the hardware & software stack looks like and how many servers and what concepts will be involved in provisioning 1.8m+ accounts.