gravy

Senior managers in Irish Water will get €420,000 for car allowances this year as the number of staff getting premium benefits continues to grow.
The Irish Examiner can confirm the number of managers getting the annual €10,500 car allowance has risen by 50% since January.
Some 40 senior managers will now get the annual payment, Irish Water said.
Irish Water has faced criticism over revelations that managers next year who earn a “need improvement” rating will get an extra 9% payment alongside their mid-€90,000 salaries.

€420k car perk for water bosses (Juno McEnroe, Irish Examiner)

‘I’ve been waiting two months on my Irish Water test results’ (Independent.ie)

Feargal Quinn prepares Bill to halt Irish Water PPS demands (Irish Times)

Irish government has found the Irish people’s breaking point with Irish Water debacle (irish Central)

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59 thoughts on “Keep Pouring

  1. Custo

    In theory I have no problem paying for water, it makes sense. But I’m not paying them. The whole thing stinks. Typical Irish mentality, cute hoorism and brown envelopery.

    1. Tom Stewart

      This strikes me as typical of anti-water-charges protestors. Soundbites and hystrionics.

      Can anyone who doesn’t intend to pay make an argument to persuade me to join you? Let it be:

      1. Fair
      2. Well-made
      3. Backed-up.

          1. Walter-Ego

            Of course it should, but the most wastage is not through households, it’s through leakage. Fix them and make investments in fixing an antiquated system. Problem solved.

          2. cormacjones

            So you agree it should be regulated. How would you do that without installing meters and charging by usage?

          3. Tom Stewart

            I don’t like the thought of unregulated water usage. I despise the thought of water wastage on that basis. But I think that I have to accept that as a lesser evil than the creation of an expensive quango which aims to charge people for what is a human right, and which will in all likelihood lead to privatisation of water in the future.

          1. Walter Ego

            YW Tom. It should be regulated at source and what part of “we already pay for it” don’t you get? @cormac Jones.

    2. Tom Stewart

      Follow-up question.

      To anyone who will not pay water charges, what are you planning to do when hit with a €424 fine for not registering and then taken to court for non-payment of that fine?

      Source = Broadsheet’s Legal Coffee Drinker: https://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/10/03/no-contract-no-consent/

      (I can’t confirm the following, but I have heard that if the case is found against you, you are also liable for the legal costs of the winning side?)

        1. Walter Ego

          Clog up the court system that it can’t operate. They threatened that with the property charge and they had to change tact and get the revenue involved when they realised the courts wouldnt work.

          1. Tom Stewart

            There’s actually promise in that. I’ve heard that Revenue can’t get involved this time because it’s not technically a tax (even though we all know it is). Can you point me in the direction of reporting on them having to move away from the courts and towards Revenue to get their money?

        2. Tom Stewart

          In theory yes, there would be safety in numbers. If nobody signed up for Irish Water, then they couldn’t bring all of us to court. But if that’s what you’re depending on, you’re pretty far away from assurance that you won’t end up in court (and possibly landed with the legal costs of the other side).

  2. cormacjones

    @Walter Ego, when you say regulated at source, do you mean people in their homes can still continue to use as much as they like?

    1. Walter Ego

      Regulate from water reserves until it reaches our taps. You do know that over 40% water losses are due to leaks. So there’s your conservation problem fixed. But argue all you want you Government apologist. We ain’t paying and we won’t be bullied no more.

      1. jungleman

        Well you’ll have the sheriff around to pick up your tv so. But look on the bright side: at least you won’t have to pay the licence fee.

      2. cormacjones

        Why do I have to be a government apologist if I support water metering? It costs money to treat water, it has an environmental impact, and people should have an incentive to use it wisely.

        For what it’s worth, I despise all the main parties (FF/FG/Lab/SF).

        1. Sam

          Where’s your evidence that we’re wasting in in private houses as opposed to industry and leaks?

          I’ve been paying taxes as have our predecessors, including the ones paid to maintain the public water system… at no stage was it done for free…

          The nice thing about the old system is that it isn’t a convenient model for privatisation.

          1. cormacjones

            If households aren’t wasting water then metering will prove this.

            Obviously other taxes should be reduced to offset this, but that was never going to happen.

          2. Tom Stewart

            @Goosey Lucy: Yes.

            Even if Enda Kenny stood up in the Dáil on 4 Nov and gave Ireland an iron-clad guarantee that water wouldn’t be privatised, it would still mean very little to me. I would want it included as an amendment to the Water Service (No.2) Bill 2013.

            Even then, I’m that wouldn’t stop them if they really wanted to later, but it would make it pretty difficult.

  3. Frilly Keane, Anyone?

    Jesus Christ
    Will it ever end?

    ( BTW I’m getting concerned about the numbers of mgt staff now as well…ffs Water Companies in the State of California wouldnt have that many lads on six figure salaries)

    1. downtowntrain

      Would you say its the six figure salaries that are the real issue in all of this? I’m happy to pay taxes for services. I understand we have books to balance etc. But every time we see another sign of six figure piggery, I’m less and less inclined to add to the pot. If i can’t afford to heat my home why should I pay to heat the seats in some lads BMW and so forth…

      1. Frilly Keane, Anyone?

        And a so forth being the paying of five lads’ heated arses to do the job of one.

        Feel free to add

  4. Original Cynical

    What is the justification of putting UP the price if the usage DROPS? This blows the conservation argument asunder and confirms that this is a simply a money-making, jobs for the boys exercise.

    1. cormacjones

      That is shocking alright. I agree with the principal of metering, but they are making a b@lls of it.

    2. Steve

      The water system, like say the electricity or gas system, is made up mostly of fixed costs items – e.g. the distribution water pipes or the meters being put in. These fixed costs, and the money needed to pay for them, don’t change with an increase/decrease in consumption, i.e. you will still need the pipes that deliver water to your house, even if you reduced your usage. So if everyone reduced our usage the unit price would need to go up to recover the same level of fixed costs – disappointing – I know.

      1. jungleman

        Nonsense. Following that logic, there is no justification in charging on the basis of the level of consumption, i.e. the metering is not justified.

        1. Steve

          Possibly, but that depends on what you see as the purpose of metering – (a) to allow a person to know their usage, so as to reduce it and therefore reduce their bill or (b) to allow a person to know their usage, so as to reduce it and therefore help conserve a valuable natural resource.

  5. Original Cynical

    Disappointing doesn’t come close! Lose-lose situation. The “Customer” will have no control whatsoever over their bill – use more pay more, use less pay more.

  6. Odis

    LOL this payment makes good sense and is tax efficient.
    If Irish Gravy bought Beemers, for the lads, then these poor chaps would have to pay a so called “benefit in kind” tax with their PAYE.

  7. Steve

    ha ha great response jungleman.

    @Original Cynical – how is conserving water a lose-lose situation?

    1. Original Cynical

      There is absolutely no incentive to conserve – you pay the same amount whatever! Inevitably money talks and could have been better spent promoting water barrels, dual flush cisterns etc.

      1. Steve

        You’re missing my original point. Some people may use their meter to help conserve a natural resource. That said, there is a monetary incentive to reduce usage when the unit price is set for a few years. Obviously, for example, you will pay less in bill number 2 if you use less water than bill number 1 where the unit price has been set for a period. Its just when the unit price change comes after a few years….

        @jungleman – just a follow up. Wont Irish Water make money anyway even in the absence of meters through billing people, without meters, with an assessed charge? Sorry don’t get you.

        1. Original Cynical

          The ultimate plan is that the usage charge will rise (post General Election). Profit, not conservation, is the goal here otherwise they would be promoting water-saving methods!

        2. Odis

          @ Steve – It doesn’t work like that. Water meters don’t work like that. You don’t go lift up the lid off your water meter to take a reading. And then go back the next day to check how much water you’ve used. They aren’t convenient for doing that sort of thing.
          Trust me, I’ve been on one for years, as part of a water scheme. They aren’t handy yokes.
          They wont save any polar bears or what have you.

          1. Steve

            but odis im guessing you will be told on your bill, like electricity and gas, how much you use. so that will help you conserve. so you wont need to lift the meter, unless you’re trying to figure out if you have a leak

          2. Original Cynical

            Why assume everyone is wasting water? I don’t and, basically, can’t use less unless I don’t drink, wash or clean. What difference will having a meter make?

          3. Odis

            The truth is Steve. I never use my 30 cubic meter allowance anyway. And there are two of us in the house. I think most people don’t waste water.

            As a consequence, I pay nothing. Lucky me.

            I suppose what you need to glean from this, is that basically folks like you, are having a €300 tax foisted upon them. Its nothing to do with protecting the worlds most precious resource etc.

  8. Milo

    WRT individual water use going down as people conserve water “meaning” that charge will go up to being in enough revenue for fixed costs of IW. This would be true if there was no population growth. As this is clearly untrue, and population growth and hence demand is going up significantly it’s unlikely if not improbable that this will create a shortfall for IW that has to be made up.

    However IW charges will go up as the state subsidy from general taxation goes down over the next ten years – an altogether different reason for the charge to go up. This is fairly normal when you transition in a new charge as you balance between general taxation and the new entity that is IW. Of course our enormous current deficit means there is little chance of reducing general taxation other then a little tweaking here and there.

    Fundamentally the requirement for a water charge and property tax are important steps to Ireland becoming a functioning democratic and solvent state as every other OECD state has discovered. The crash was largely created by an electorate who wanted the state to borrow for today’s expenditure. Putting water as a seperate charge makes it that much more difficult for the next “giveaway” government that the electorate will sadly vote in, much as they voted in Bertie Ahern in a record three times.

    1. jungleman

      “The crash was largely created by an electorate who wanted the state to borrow for today’s expenditure. Putting water as a seperate charge makes it that much more difficult for the next “giveaway” government that the electorate will sadly vote in, much as they voted in Bertie Ahern in a record three times.”

      If only they had heeded all those warnings from Fine Gael over the years.

    2. Sam

      “The crash was largely created by an electorate who wanted the state to borrow for today’s expenditure.”

      Let’s implicate the tooth fairy as well while we’re at it… The crash was caused by develoeprs, bankers and government who facilitated them in reckless lending, and then bailing them out, by loading the burden on us, and by people stupidly falling for the scam that they must buy a house during a bubble, before they are priced out of the market.

      Our national debt was not crazy before the property bubble burst. It became unsustainable afterwards.

  9. Spartacus

    “Fundamentally the requirement for a water charge and property tax are important steps to Ireland becoming a functioning democratic and solvent state as every other OECD state has discovered.”
    Credible references required, else crawl back under your rock, Blueshirt.

  10. Clampers Outside!

    The fight shouldn’t be about whether to pay water rates or no.

    It should be about, IMO…
    – who pays
    – the income cut off for not paying and all the variables that come with that, such as, those minding others with disabilities, to name one
    – how much
    And the important one….
    – The legislation that set up IW has in it that IW will never be privatised and this should be written into the constitution
    – Lastly, it should be run as a not for profit and all money raised goes straight back into keeping it there cleanest and researching and educating on future needs and use.

    oh wait… that would be like practical…. it won’t happen so

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