Uisce Éireann kicking it right out of the park

Atlantic Dawn

Wow, what a time to be alive…

• 344 staff on over €100k a year
• Profits rose by over 50% for 2023 to €378.56m
• Bonus pay for Uisce Éireann staff rose 17pc to €10.57m in 2023

https://www.independent.ie/business/irish/bonus-pay-for-uisce-eireann-staff-rose-17pc-to-1057m-last-year-annual-report-reveals/a1870741801.html

Oscar_Madison

Uisce Éireann- taking the piss

lawred2

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058357706/uisce-eireann-kicking-it-right-out-of-the-park

Profits?

How exactly are they funded?

lawred2

Revenues were made up of €1.06bn in government subvention payments for domestic water billing, non-domestic revenues of €245.46m, and new-connection revenues, which almost doubled to €246.84m.

Haha. Imagine using the term profit when 66% of your revenue is direct from the government. Orwellian.

dashoonage

and yet i am 19 months boiling water in Limerick. ive actually given up hope ill ever be able to use my tap water again.

TinyMuffin

weren’t they responsible for the fish kill in cork a couple of weeks ago. Bonus for that.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316496#Comment_122316496

Commercial water is paid for

Cluedo Monopoly

The superquango Irish Water was set up to fail by FG. Nice dollop of cronyism, corruption and excess thrown in for good measure.

This is what Alan Dukes (Fine Gael) said in 2014.

"A glorious, god-awful mess has been made of Irish Water, we've ended up with a system now that no rational person would have invented if they had sat down to put this kind of system together."

whisky_galore

I refuse to call them by anything other than Irish Water.

Feeble rebranding attempt to put their shítty origins behind them. And they're still shít.

Cluedo Monopoly

This is evidence that Irish Water superquango has not worked.

https://www.rte.ie/news/2024/0612/1454285-ireland-water-quality/

Water quality in Ireland is not improving overall, according to a report from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

The report - 'Water Quality in 2023: An Indicators Reports' - said improvements are being seen in some rivers and lakes but they are being offset by declines elsewhere. 

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316719#Comment_122316719

This.. exactly this! No doubt cost a fortune to rebrand (at our expense) too!

It's like the Gardai renaming the Traffic Corps to "Roads Policing" in the wake of the penalty points scandal - not fooling anyone lads.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316719#Comment_122316719

I wonder what the rebranding cost and which consultants were hired to roll it out 😉

bigroad

Irish Water ,RTE,The HSE.The RSA,

Will I go on or is that enough for now.

Its a great country if you have loads of money and move in the right circles.

But for the rest of us just keep paying your taxes to an incompidant Government who will waste your money and give it away to people from other countries who are basically having a nice holiday on your coin

Wanderer78

…dont worry folks, plenty of ffg voters out there, so tis another ffg government, yippeeee…..

BLFOTR

You get the government and services you voted for and deserve end of story. Irish people love the chancers and the incompetent. It's what we do, reward incompetency.

Cookie_Monster

Surely if they're making such profits that means they're not investing in infrastructure at a high enough rate and either need to substantially increase this or hand the money back to govt.

How can they justify bonuses when water quality is NOT improving?

Busman Paddy Lasty

Uisce Eireann lol. Did someone get a promotion for that or get fired ha ha.

I read the EPA press release before the article. It was 90% focused on agriculture so probably not the best footing for calling out the quango incompetence.

JVince

I always laugh when people have a faux annoyance about something they haven't a clue about.

Most of the better paid staff are expert engineers who would easily get the same money in any company

Some are also "hand over" staff from the councils.

Yep, water quality has not seen a dramatic increase because it wasn't too bad in the first place, but also the billions needed are not there because no-one wants to pay for it.

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316824#Comment_122316824

Because the intention was never to improve the actual water in the first place. It was setup as a shell to "manage" people and duties that were already being performed by the council, and to get the population used to paying (again - because it's not as though those council staff were free!) for basic water as a product before FG sold it off down the line.

geographica

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058357706/uisce-eireann-kicking-it-right-out-of-the-park

An ffffing joke but us thicks take it

(Like this return scam)

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316872#Comment_122316872

lots of poorly informed people at the time and doesn't seem to have changed. You would be amazed how many "expert" on Irish water still don't know commercial water is paid for, anyway

The Irish system is crippled, pipes are old and in reality needs a total overhaul.

After the crash the option was to save money, when looking across Europe most countries have charges and that is why the push was to create a company to safe guard the future of water in Ireland and to reduce government spend in the area

Of course people spread lots of nonsense, history is history and Irish Water was taken back in as a government entity.

One of the most important things people need to live is water, yet that was the one thing people went after :-)

SuperBowserWorld

They talked about needing billions to fund water infrastructure, and then they drop billions onto the national debt, at the drop of a hat, for covid, "refugees", children's hospital, ...

We are lucky people went and protested. Otherwise we'd have an extra dose of fear and anxiety every time we turned on the tap, or had a shower, while watching the lashing rain outside.

Honestly the government are terrible are managing money and costing things. I don't exactly know what they are for. The guy who was "Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform" is now an EU commisioner.

They should set up a department for "Burning Money" or whatever the Irish translation of that is…

_Kaiser_

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316910#Comment_122316910

Predictable.. always the same posters with the same lines.

I wasn't talking about commercial water supplies and you're well aware of that. The rest of that post just reads like a press release of the day.

But the results are clear. Water quality is no better overall (as validated by that EPA report above) despite 10 years of Irish Water. This was simply another FG-led privitisation scam that didn't work out on this occasion because they actually managed to annoy people so much that tens of thousands marched in protest, and even more just refused to engage with the new shell company.

Don't bother replying. I've heard it all or can predict it all already.

Cluedo Monopoly

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316934#Comment_122316934

Let's not forget that FG had plans to nationalise Irish Water too.

Dr.Tom

Is anyone on board with me in thinking Uisce Eireann are unfortunate to be taking over historically badly managed water systems and treatment plants from years and years of lazy local authorities (county and city councils)?

Padre_Pio

100k in engineering or management wouldn't be unusual.

They're a profit, unlike many other semi state companies.

Wanderer78

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316944#Comment_122316944

… ah common conservative tactic, underfund, even defund critical services, to allow them to a serious level of disrepair, aiding the process towards future privatisation, we re watching it all play out across the pond with thames water……

timmyntc

It makes sense to have 1 standard body managing water and sewage infrastructure across the country, rather than every council doing it differently.

It also makes sense to charge for water because 1) it needs to be paid for, and 2) paying out of general taxation runs the risk of water budget being cut for political or budgetary reasons.

What did not make sense was fully privatising water which was FGs intent - attempting to offload Irish Water to Denis O'Brien and other FG cronies.

Uisce Eireann should remain a semi state like ESB, so it has it's own ability to raise debt for infrastructure and can charge for usage - the alternative is similar to when councils ran water and sewage, which is why our network is so sh*tty (literally). Leaks galore, lead pipes, insufficient capacity (affects house building viability) and raw sewage discharged into watercourses.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316934#Comment_122316934

Water quality is better since Irish Water was created

yes I agree

The creation of Irish Water was driven because of the crash. No matter which party was in government it would have been created. Again I refer to my previous about I don't vote for FG but Im not stupid enough to blame them for something they had little control over.

"Don't bother replying" because I am happy in my own echo chamber. 😂

whisky_galore

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316736#Comment_122316736

A good few €k to design a logo a child could have come up with.

Clo-Clo

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/122316966#Comment_122316966

The councils running it was a disaster, absolute disaster. The people complaining about Irish water never had to deal with it so have no idea.

Uisce Eireann will remain a state owned, they have only completed the full detachment from Ervia etc.

Ireland will continue to run for years, then it will all turn into a big f**king mess and our water system will be terrible. Then everyone will come out crying "why didn't they tell us?" "why didn't we invest in our water system?" etc etc etc

At this stage the plan is to push more water into Dublin because it is cheaper than fixing the actual issues