Water ownership...It hasn't gone away you know.

Edward M

Captain Obvious wrote: »

You want the actual company enshrined in the Constitution?

Why not, if you acknowledge it as a state owned representative of the dept of environment?
You could also take IW out of it and subsume it into the dept of environment.

blanch152

Captain Obvious wrote: »

If it's so simple what is the amendment you would introduce?





The idea that the potential consequences of poor wording should be ignored is more so. It's nothing to do with PR. Is that really your only answer to legal arguments? Insults and conspiracy?

The insults are beginning to fly as the argument for a constitutional amendment falters in face of the difficulties of actually constructing an amendment.

blanch152

Edward M wrote: »

How about, The company, Irish water and all the infrastructure it owns and the service it supplies and any infrastructure and any service it adds to the existing water supply and waste water treatment system shall be owned by the state and shall not be sold off to any private person or consortium.
I'm not getting huge money for coming up with actual legal wording that could be constitunalised, but that's a rough idea of what might cover it.

(1) Change the name of the company and the constitutional amendment no longer applies.
(2) What are the company going to do with infrastructure they no longer need because it is no longer functioning. Water treatment plans that are due to be decommissioned can't be sold.


Next wording please.

Captain Obvious

Edward M wrote: »

Why not, if you acknowledge it as a state owned representative of the dept of environment?
You could also take IW out of it and subsume it into the dept of environment.

What if you enshrine IW you're stuck with it. What happens in the future if you want to do something like separate the sewer management from the fresh water supply? You'll need another referendum won't you?

charlie14

blanch152 wrote: »

(1) Change the name of the company and the constitutional amendment no longer applies.
(2) What are the company going to do with infrastructure they no longer need because it is no longer functioning. Water treatment plans that are due to be decommissioned can't be sold.


Next wording please.

What purpose do you believe will be served by asking internet randomers to word a constitutional amendment other than to attempt to make a point that it cannot be done ?

Aside from the fact that all the past points you made on the certainty of Irish Water continuing on its merry way burying yet more taxpayer money underground, looking after the lads and collecting domestic water metered charges unhindered for ever and a day being so wildly off the mark, would you not be better off with your seemingly expert understanding of constitutional amendments advising Séamus Woulfe ?

After all he is the Attorney General tasked by this government on their commitment to introduce an amendment to ensure the public water supply is never privatised.

blanch152

charlie14 wrote: »

What purpose do you believe will be served by asking internet randomers to word a constitutional amendment other than to attempt to make a point that it cannot be done ?
.

Well, that is exactly the point. Those internet randomers don't have copies of amendments proposed by Sinn Fein, PBP, FF or any of those other populist political parties supposedly clamouring for a constitutional amendment. The point is exactly this - there is no sensible straightforward amendment out there.

That means one thing - we are rerunning the 8th amendment. We would be putting something into the Constitution that we don't know how the courts will interpret. One lame attempt contained the words "beholden to" that I have struggled to find any coherent legal meaning for. This is a clear case of the "emperor has no clothes".

charlie14 wrote: »

Aside from the fact that all the past points you made on the certainty of Irish Water continuing on its merry way burying yet more taxpayer money underground, looking after the lads and collecting domestic water metered charges unhindered for ever and a day being so wildly off the mark, would you not be better off with your seemingly expert understanding of constitutional amendments advising Séamus Woulfe ?

After all he is the Attorney General tasked by this government on their commitment to introduce an amendment to ensure the public water supply is never privatised.

Well lookee here, the last I checked Irish Water was still here and is definitely going nowhere, water charges are returning under the guise of excessive usage charges and I never defended looking after the lads, so I was right on the two things you have correctly identified me as standing for.

I don't make a habit of looking into poster's past pronouncements, but I suspect if I looked deeply enough I would find you would have shared company with those who predicted the demise of Irish Water, a company that is still with us.

As for Seamus Wolfe, there was a commitment in the Confidence and Supply Agreement, put in by the weaselly populist FF party, for a constitutional amendment, if Mr. Wolfe had a bright idea as to how it would work, I am sure that we would have heard about it by now.

The facts are that framing a constitutional amendment to calm the ignorant mob is quite a hard thing to do. If we see an amendment published, it certainly won't be like any of those suggested here, and I suspect that if it is to prevent the nationalisation of farmers wells, then it won't go far enough for the conspiracy theorists on here.

Edward M

Captain Obvious wrote: »

What if you enshrine IW you're stuck with it. What happens in the future if you want to do something like separate the sewer management from the fresh water supply? You'll need another referendum won't you?

Why would you want to separate it?
The only reason I can see is to privatise it..
But that's not the point, the point I'm making is that it's not impossible to word it.
The only reason not to do it is to leave the door open to privatisation, which some people are pushing for.

blanch152

Edward M wrote: »

Why would you want to separate it?
The only reason I can see is to privatise it..
But that's not the point, the point I'm making is that it's not impossible to word it.
The only reason not to do it is to leave the door open to privatisation, which some people are pushing for.

If it isn't impossible to word it, why are all of the attempts on this thread failing so dismally?

oscarBravo

Edward M wrote: »

The only reason not to do it is to leave the door open to privatisation, which some people are pushing for.

Firstly, nobody is pushing for privatisation. Some of us aren't losing sleep over the remote possibility, but that's not the same things as pushing for it.*

And second, it's not the only reason. The more important reason is that populist whims shouldn't be cluttering the Constitution.

I've said it before: this idea that it's OK for the current electorate to tie the hands of a government elected by a future electorate in order to prevent something that's seen as a life-or-death issue today needs to die in a fire.

It keeps coming back to the eighth amendment: an attempt was made to tie the hands of future governments in order to satisfy the strongly-held views of the electorate at the time, and it was an unmitigated catastrophe. After several attempts to fix it, it was finally repealed and replaced with a completely sane provision: the government is empowered to do whatever it's given a popular mandate to do.

I get it: you don't trust the government not to introduce a policy that you disagree with. So what? I don't trust the government not to introduce policies I disagree with either. But I'm not demanding a plebiscite to pollute the Constitution with prohibitions on the things I don't want.

There has yet to be a good reason given for this proposal that isn't easily dismantled with simple logic.


* on edit: OK, some people are pushing for it - but every thread has its "privatise all the things!!" libertarian nutters. My point is that that's not the core objection to the proposal, and it's disingenuous to frame all objectors in this way.

charlie14

blanch152 wrote: »

Well, that is exactly the point. Those internet randomers don't have copies of amendments proposed by Sinn Fein, PBP, FF or any of those other populist political parties supposedly clamouring for a constitutional amendment. The point is exactly this - there is no sensible straightforward amendment out there.

That means one thing - we are rerunning the 8th amendment. We would be putting something into the Constitution that we don't know how the courts will interpret. One lame attempt contained the words "beholden to" that I have struggled to find any coherent legal meaning for. This is a clear case of the "emperor has no clothes".





Well lookee here, the last I checked Irish Water was still here and is definitely going nowhere, water charges are returning under the guise of excessive usage charges and I never defended looking after the lads, so I was right on the two things you have correctly identified me as standing for.

I don't make a habit of looking into poster's past pronouncements, but I suspect if I looked deeply enough I would find you would have shared company with those who predicted the demise of Irish Water, a company that is still with us.

As for Seamus Wolfe, there was a commitment in the Confidence and Supply Agreement, put in by the weaselly populist FF party, for a constitutional amendment, if Mr. Wolfe had a bright idea as to how it would work, I am sure that we would have heard about it by now.

The facts are that framing a constitutional amendment to calm the ignorant mob is quite a hard thing to do. If we see an amendment published, it certainly won't be like any of those suggested here, and I suspect that if it is to prevent the nationalisation of farmers wells, then it won't go far enough for the conspiracy theorists on here.

Irish Water was never going anywhere. At least not in the grandiose manner you and others had assured us it would be for ever and a day.

The poor bedraggled thing is with us but like an old toothless cat in the corner. no threat to even mice. To paraphrase your own analogy now that it has been exposed for what it was, "the emperor has no clothes"



Practically ever prophesy you have made in the past with such certainty to the glorious future of water charges and metering have been shown either incorrect or nothing other than smoke and mirrors. If only for those alone I hope you will excuse me if your latest attempt to resurrect, as Michael Noonan so eloquently phrased it, "the dead cat on the pitch" if I look on your latest efforts as just more of the same.



It would save both of us some time if you were to actually read replies. I have already pointed out to you that the "free allowance" for domestic households before Irish Water had its cough softened was 30,000 liters per annum. It is now 213,000 liters per annum. Water charges for excessive use are not coming back for any household that is not filling swimming pools or watering vast acreage of manicured lawns.


One of the FF conditions on supporting FG with a Confidence and Supply Agreement was the acceptance of the recommendations of an independently chaired Oireachtas Committee on water charges. FG were quite free and entitled to refuse, but they did not. One of those recommendations was the drafting of a constitutional amendment to be put to the people that public water supplies would never be privatised. That is not going to magically disappear regardless of how much you might wish it too, so perhaps you should just get over it and look for other windmills to tilt at.


Btw, what is this fascination with Sinn Féin where you somehow have this compulsion of attempting to bring them into any thread you post in

Captain Obvious

Edward M wrote: »

Why would you want to separate it?
The only reason I can see is to privatise it..
But that's not the point, the point I'm making is that it's not impossible to word it.
The only reason not to do it is to leave the door open to privatisation, which some people are pushing for.

That's like saying the only reason to remove the eighth was to kill babies. It's entrenched rhetoric. Many of us believe that unnecessary laws cause difficulties outside of their intended scope. This is not due to FG pr as another poster believes, it's due to seeing it happen over and over. The only thing worse than an unnecessary law is one that is worded poorly and causes major issues down the line when it has to be removed again, as happened with Irelands statutory rape laws, it's Offences Against the State Act and it's immigration laws. This issue is multiplied tenfold with constitutional amendments as they require a referendum to be changed, as we saw with the eighth amendment which blocked access to abortion in a way many deemed overly restrictive.

Edward M

oscarBravo wrote: »

Firstly, nobody is pushing for privatisation. Some of us aren't losing sleep over the remote possibility, but that's not the same things as pushing for it.*

And second, it's not the only reason. The more important reason is that populist whims shouldn't be cluttering the Constitution.

I've said it before: this idea that it's OK for the current electorate to tie the hands of a government elected by a future electorate in order to prevent something that's seen as a life-or-death issue today needs to die in a fire.

It keeps coming back to the eighth amendment: an attempt was made to tie the hands of future governments in order to satisfy the strongly-held views of the electorate at the time, and it was an unmitigated catastrophe. After several attempts to fix it, it was finally repealed and replaced with a completely sane provision: the government is empowered to do whatever it's given a popular mandate to do.

I get it: you don't trust the government not to introduce a policy that you disagree with. So what? I don't trust the government not to introduce policies I disagree with either. But I'm not demanding a plebiscite to pollute the Constitution with prohibitions on the things I don't want.

There has yet to be a good reason given for this proposal that isn't easily dismantled with simple logic.


* on edit: OK, some people are pushing for it - but every thread has its "privatise all the things!!" libertarian nutters. My point is that that's not the core objection to the proposal, and it's disingenuous to frame all objectors in this way.

I don't lose sleep over it either.
I'm just looking at the reasoning behind why Fine Gael are looking at it.
It might never get to referendum, but if it did I'd be in favour of it.
Going on the way the water protest and controversy went, I'd say it would pass.
I made no accusations against anyone either, none of my replies are personal attacks.
It's not impossible I think to word a constitutional clause that would keep the public water service in public ownership, if Fine Gael are considering it they must see some merit in it.
I personally am in favour of water charges, but I wouldn't necessarily be if my charges were going to some private company's or individuals profits.
I think if water charges are to ever be successfully introduced this action might help.
It takes a massive bogeyman out of opposition to charges out of the way, and may well be why FG are looking at the possibility of doing it.

Comparing it to the eighth is a bit disingenuous I think.
Going on the reasoning in your post, why not have a referendum to abolish the constitution entirely, let's leave everything entirely up to the elected Govt of the day?

Captain Obvious

Edward M wrote: »

Comparing it to the eighth is a bit disingenuous I think.
Going on the reasoning in your post, why not have a referendum to abolish the constitution entirely, let's leave everything entirely up to the elected Govt of the day?

Disingenuous how? It was an amendment that had unintended consequences and had to be removed.


The constitution is what establishes the government. It also grants rights to citizens.

Edward M

Captain Obvious wrote: »

Disingenuous how? It was an amendment that had unintended consequences and had to be removed.


The constitution is what establishes the government. It also grants rights to citizens.

This proposal isn't life or death in fairness.
Second part I agree with completely.

FreudianSlippers

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

Water should remain in public hands. Not arguing with you on that point at all. And I'll probably (with some embarrassment) vote yes, if only to end all the privatisation talk.

It is already Constitutionally impossible to privatise "water" (the commodity) per Art 10 of the Constitution.

FreudianSlippers

blanch152 wrote: »

(1) Change the name of the company and the constitutional amendment no longer applies.
(2) What are the company going to do with infrastructure they no longer need because it is no longer functioning. Water treatment plans that are due to be decommissioned can't be sold.


Next wording please.

It also doesn't allow Irish Water to hire any outside company to build infrastructure on their behalf.

Constitutionally nationalising Irish Water is also the dumbest thing any country I can think of has put in their Constitution.

blanch152

Edward M wrote: »

I don't lose sleep over it either.
I'm just looking at the reasoning behind why Fine Gael are looking at it.
It might never get to referendum, but if it did I'd be in favour of it.
Going on the way the water protest and controversy went, I'd say it would pass.
I made no accusations against anyone either, none of my replies are personal attacks.
It's not impossible I think to word a constitutional clause that would keep the public water service in public ownership, if Fine Gael are considering it they must see some merit in it.
I personally am in favour of water charges, but I wouldn't necessarily be if my charges were going to some private company's or individuals profits.
I think if water charges are to ever be successfully introduced this action might help.
It takes a massive bogeyman out of opposition to charges out of the way, and may well be why FG are looking at the possibility of doing it.

Comparing it to the eighth is a bit disingenuous I think.
Going on the reasoning in your post, why not have a referendum to abolish the constitution entirely, let's leave everything entirely up to the elected Govt of the day?

Well it seems to me impossible to word a constitutional clause because there are some like Paul Murphy, Clare Daly et al who have been calling for this for a number of years, and despite all that time, we have yet to see a coherent wording, let alone one that would withstand a legal challenge.

FG were craven to populism in 1983 and we got the Eighth amendment, history may be repeating itself. I wouldn't take the fact that FG are looking at a constitutional amendment as an endorsement that it is the right thing to do or that there is merit in it. They have failed before on the issue of constitutional amendments.

There are striking historical parallels with 1983 and the introduction of the 8th. We had the same thing of a populist movement calling for a constitutional amendment, pretending it was a simple thing to draft it, populist opposition parties jumping on the bandwagon for short-sighted political purposes and a weak government led by FG giving in to the populism.

It took decades to clear up that mess, you would think that people would have learned.

FreudianSlippers

168 posts and, as far as I can see, no logical reason we would want to prevent a "private company" providing water services on behalf of the State (who, let's remember has been pretty poor at doing so to date).

charlie14

charlie14 wrote: »

Irish Water was never going anywhere. At least not in the grandiose manner you and others had assured us it would be for ever and a day.

The poor bedraggled thing is with us but like an old toothless cat in the corner. no threat to even mice. To paraphrase your own analogy now that it has been exposed for what it was, "the emperor has no clothes"



Practically ever prophesy you have made in the past with such certainty to the glorious future of water charges and metering have been shown either incorrect or nothing other than smoke and mirrors. If only for those alone I hope you will excuse me if your latest attempt to resurrect, as Michael Noonan so eloquently phrased it, "the dead cat on the pitch" if I look on your latest efforts as just more of the same.



It would save both of us some time if you were to actually read replies. I have already pointed out to you that the "free allowance" for domestic households before Irish Water had its cough softened was 30,000 liters per annum. It is now 213,000 liters per annum. Water charges for excessive use are not coming back for any household that is not filling swimming pools or watering vast acreage of manicured lawns.


One of the FF conditions on supporting FG with a Confidence and Supply Agreement was the acceptance of the recommendations of an independently chaired Oireachtas Committee on water charges. FG were quite free and entitled to refuse, but they did not. One of those recommendations was the drafting of a constitutional amendment to be put to the people that public water supplies would never be privatised. That is not going to magically disappear regardless of how much you might wish it too, so perhaps you should just get over it and look for other windmills to tilt at.


Btw, what is this fascination with Sinn Féin where you somehow have this compulsion of attempting to bring them into any thread you post in

Careful now. That toothless cat has claws.

blanch152

charlie14 wrote: »

Irish Water was never going anywhere. At least not in the grandiose manner you and others had assured us it would be for ever and a day.

The poor bedraggled thing is with us but like an old toothless cat in the corner. no threat to even mice. To paraphrase your own analogy now that it has been exposed for what it was, "the emperor has no clothes"



Practically ever prophesy you have made in the past with such certainty to the glorious future of water charges and metering have been shown either incorrect or nothing other than smoke and mirrors. If only for those alone I hope you will excuse me if your latest attempt to resurrect, as Michael Noonan so eloquently phrased it, "the dead cat on the pitch" if I look on your latest efforts as just more of the same.



It would save both of us some time if you were to actually read replies. I have already pointed out to you that the "free allowance" for domestic households before Irish Water had its cough softened was 30,000 liters per annum. It is now 213,000 liters per annum. Water charges for excessive use are not coming back for any household that is not filling swimming pools or watering vast acreage of manicured lawns.


One of the FF conditions on supporting FG with a Confidence and Supply Agreement was the acceptance of the recommendations of an independently chaired Oireachtas Committee on water charges. FG were quite free and entitled to refuse, but they did not. One of those recommendations was the drafting of a constitutional amendment to be put to the people that public water supplies would never be privatised. That is not going to magically disappear regardless of how much you might wish it too, so perhaps you should just get over it and look for other windmills to tilt at.


Btw, what is this fascination with Sinn Féin where you somehow have this compulsion of attempting to bring them into any thread you post in

Irish Water - check.
Water charges for excessive usage - check.

Exactly what I predicted. If you did actually read back carefully, there were posters predicting the demise and dismantling of Irish Water. I said that was never going to happen and that a single utility was here to stay. Proven completely correct in all of that. I also said that some form of usage charging was necessary for compliance with the WFD. And that is what we have. Proven correct on that one too.

Quite simply, a single utility is here to stay. Charges for usage are now enshrined and they will creep in further as the years go by.


I don't understand your bizarre reference to SF. On this thread, I have been criticial of both FF (weaselly populist) and FG (weak, afraid, climate change) and hardly mentioned SF. As with most political debates in Ireland on important issues, they are largely irrelevant.

Chips Lovell

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

It is already Constitutionally impossible to privatise "water" (the commodity) per Art 10 of the Constitution.

No harm in adding braces if you already have a belt? :pac:

oscarBravo

Edward M wrote: »

It might never get to referendum, but if it did I'd be in favour of it.

Why?

Going on the way the water protest and controversy went, I'd say it would pass.

I'm pretty sure it would pass, too. That doesn't make it not a terrible idea. We're no strangers to enshrining terrible ideas in the Constitution by popular vote.

...if Fine Gael are considering it they must see some merit in it.

I'm sure they do. But Fine Gael seeing merit in something doesn't automatically make it a good idea.

I think if water charges are to ever be successfully introduced this action might help.
It takes a massive bogeyman out of opposition to charges out of the way, and may well be why FG are looking at the possibility of doing it.

I'm actually pretty sure that's the entire totality of the reason for this proposal, which makes it quite ironic that there's a strong correlation between those opposed to water charges and those in favour of this proposal.

Comparing it to the eighth is a bit disingenuous I think.

Why?

Going on the reasoning in your post, why not have a referendum to abolish the constitution entirely, let's leave everything entirely up to the elected Govt of the day?

Then you've misunderstood my reasoning.

I'm not arguing for letting the government do anything it wants; I'm arguing against using the Constitution as a way of enshrining current popular opinion so as to prevent future governments from enacting the will of future electorates.

oscarBravo

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

No harm in adding braces if you already have a belt? :pac:

True - if you're 100% certain the braces won't have unintended consequences.

FreudianSlippers

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

No harm in adding braces if you already have a belt? :pac:

I mean, it could be.

Say someone wanted to open a big desalination plant somewhere to address water supply issues in the future; State agrees to sell ocean water to the company to desalinate and then sell back to the State as clean water - fundamentally impossible under the proposed Constitutional amendment... the State would have to buy this company (oh wait they can't do that)... the State would have to open their own desalination plant (oh wait, no money to do that; perhaps the State doesn't have the technology of this company)... the State then gets that technology somehow and decides to build their own plant (oops. just broke state aid rules).

This idea is no less daft than the idea a few years ago to nationalise the Dell factory in Limerick. The idea of and practice of temporarily "selling" assets and commodities to private parties is a common part of the modern world and no amount of wishy thinking by those advocating this Constitutional amendment is going to change the hard cold facts of the world... the main one being that Ireland is awful at providing water services.

Chips Lovell

True, that's always a risk. As has already been pointed out, that already happened with the Eighth Amendment.

I'm sure the framers of the Eighth Amendment might argue that it did its job, preventing the Oireachtas for legislating for abortion at a time when the people of Ireland didn't want it. But, it did have unintended consequences and it's quite doubtful the Oireachtas would have legislated for it even if there weren't a constitutional prohibition.

Chips Lovell

Actually, this thread reminds me that there were two posters on an earlier thread who made a €100 bet on whether Irish Water would be privatised by the end of 2018. Sadly both have since closed their accounts, so I'm not sure if we'll see any outcome.

FreudianSlippers

Baron de Charlus wrote: »

Actually, this thread reminds me that there were two posters on an earlier thread who made a €100 bet on whether Irish Water would be privatised by the end of 2018. Sadly both have since closed their accounts, so I'm not sure if we'll see any outcome.

I think I might be banned from the Politics Archive... I don't have permission to access! :pac:

FreudianSlippers

Edward M wrote: »

How about, The company, Irish water and all the infrastructure it owns and the service it supplies and any infrastructure and any service it adds to the existing water supply and waste water treatment system shall be owned by the state and shall not be sold off to any private person or consortium.

Oh wait... I just remembered that this already doesn't work, as Irish Water is a private company and the Minister is the sole shareholder.

Podge_irl

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

It is already Constitutionally impossible to privatise "water" (the commodity) per Art 10 of the Constitution.

Surely 10.3 gives them the right to privatise it?

Provision may be made by law for the
management of the property which belongs to the
state by virtue of this article and for the control
of the alienation, whether temporary or
permanent, of that property.

This is not an argument in favour of an amendment, I think its a phenomenally silly idea, just curious about the current status.

FreudianSlippers

Podge_irl wrote: »

Surely 10.3 gives them the right to privatise it?




This is not an argument in favour of an amendment, I think its a phenomenally silly idea, just curious about the current status.

The key word there is "management".

EDIT: sorry was in the middle of something and didn't get to extrapolate on this. The point is that the government is and should be free to allow for any party to manage supply of water so long as the underlying commodity cannot be sold. As it stands, the Government uses this Art 10.3 to allow Irish Water (a private company) to manage water supply on behalf of the State. This is a vitally important thing to allow in the Constitution.
It also makes sense not to extend this to infrastructure, because the State frequently needs private companies (Irish Water or otherwise) to temporarily own infrastructure when it's being built and then on completion the State takes ownership of that.