Uisce Éireann kicking it right out of the park

People seem to forget that the whole concept of Irish Water came from the post crash bailout agreed by FF and the EU, IMF etc.

Domestic water charges were to be introduced as part of the process and Irish Water would be the vehicle for these charges.

FF and the Troika agreed this while the 2007-2011 FF/Green Party government was in power.

And when FG came to power in 2011 they continued with what was agreed as part of the bailout.

Then in the 2016 general election when FF were struggling in the polls FF decided they were against the very water charges they agreed to implement.

The public responded in kind and gave them a huge boost at the polls and as a result FG formed a minority government with the support of FF and water charges were binned.

About 1/6th of revenue.

Daft remark. Irish Water took over the clapped-out Local Authority water systems. Not a matter of conservatism , just a matter of the non-achieving, culture of neglect that pervades local government in Ireland.

And the main reason why Irih Water need such a huge subvention is that the far Left in Irish politics sabotaged water charges. Irish Water in its present guise was never an "FFG" project; it's a product of the free-lunch mentality of so many Irish politicians, especially on the Left

Regardless of how/why it was setup and if FG intended to privatise it, Irish Water seems to be doing an OK job at the moment. Before Irish Water there had been decades of shambolic underinvestment with 31 local authorities doing their own thing. Treatment plants close to each other but because they were in different counties, no pooling of resources, caretakers, engineers etc. inefficiencies in terms of procurement, admin and everything else.

Anyway, most people don't think about water, its a boring topic. Where does water come from? The tap. Where does my sh*te go? The toilet. End of conversation - unless you want to impose a usage charge.

The posts on here about the lack of improvement in water quality are not really fair to Irish Water. Irish Water wastewater plants are sources of pollution but as said they are upgrading them and it is generally accepted that agriculture is the most significant source of water pollution.

Other sources include domestic septic tanks. Improving water quality means enforcing water quality legislation, carrying out inspections, prosecuting polluters etc which is the responsibility of the EPA and County Councils and is labour intensive work. AFAIK the EPA has prosecuted Irish Water on a few occasions. If anyone wants to understand more why water quality is not improving, ask what the county councils are doing (or not doing due to gross under resourcing and probably politics) on agricultural and septic tank pollution. On the septic tanks they have a specific (small) number of inspections that they have to do each year and some don't even manage that. At the rate they are going, it would take over 250 years to inspect every domestic system in the country

https://www.epa.ie/news-releases/news-releases-2024/failure-to-fix-faulty-septic-tanks-is-a-risk-to-human-health-and-the-environment-and-cant-continue-says-epa.php

Ah now the cronyism around how contracts were awarded was something else in the early days of IW. REDACTEDs Siteserv initial sale, debt writedown and then the contract award for IW meter installations was scandalous. That was the lightning rod that lead to water charge protests gaining traction.

Many revisionists like to paint it as only scroungers protesting about not wanting to pay, in reality it was a broad spectrum of people protesting for a variety of reasons - the biggest being how IW was a vessel for govt to funnel money to REDACTED and other colourful characters.

it seems you don’t know how they work

Id say im not in the minority.

Whether or not there was a "conspiracy" or a plan to privatise Irish Water, that has long gone out the window. No sane investor would touch it. What real evidence to you have that privatisation is on anyone's agenda?

Former minister who set up Irish Water says 'forces' at work to privatise company (thejournal.ie)

Former minister who set up Irish Water says 'forces' at work to privatise company

FORMER JUNIOR MINISTER Fergus O’Dowd (FG), one the people involved in setting up Irish Water, said last night that he felt that there were “forces at work” with “agendas” to privatise the utility company.

He said he remains “deeply concerned at other agendas, they may be European… I don’t know where they are coming from…” and said we have “real reason to be concerned” about the possibility of Irish Water being privatised.

Speaking about his role in the setting up of Irish Water in the Dáil last night, he said that he always wanted it to be included in legislation that Irish Water could never be privatised and would remain a public company.

He said he was very surprised then to see in the number two Bill there was no provision guaranteeing the utility remaining a public body.

It was excluded and not included in legislation, and that concerned me greatly.

https://www.independent.ie/irish-news/no-minutes-for-irish-water-meetings-attended-by-former-minister-hogan/31086769.html

There are no minutes from a series of high-level Irish Water meetings held in 2012, including some attended by then environment minister Phil Hogan.

Mr Hogan met with Bord Gáis chairperson Rose Hynes in October and November that year but no notes were kept during the discussions.

In total, there are no minutes from more than half of all meetings between the Department of Environment and Bord Gáis in the six months after they set up Irish Water.

Fergus O'Dowd is still a Fine Gael TD and was closer to the Irish Water setup than anyone. Take it up with him.