By Any Means Necessary

at

IrishWater_Mark_Colour_border

RTE reports:

RTÉ News has learned that from next year a new database will be used for the administration of the water conservation grant.

In a letter, obtained by RTÉ under the Freedom of Information Act, the Department of the Environment details how the Local Government Management Agency could bring together data on customers and non-customers of Irish Water into a single new database to be used by the Department of Social Protection.

This will involve the setting up of a new website to collect and register the details of non-Irish Water Customers.

There you go now.

Households to receive letters about water grant (RTÉ)

Previously: About That Irish Water ‘Database’

Sponsored Link

54 thoughts on “By Any Means Necessary

    1. Clampers Outside!

      The patch work approach to the setting up a utility by this gubbiment and the unfathomly brilliant incompetence of John Tierney and all the senior staff at IW.

      Or… it’s bureaucracy Jim, so it’ll cost more than you know it.

      1. doncolleone

        I’ll just pay it like I pay the RTE license and let the sweet sweet boiling hot bile carry me through the day.

          1. Mikeyfex

            Ha. Nice modification, admin. Pathetic ad hominem towards a person who just asks relevant questions that others find hard to stomach.

        1. classter

          Leaving aside the politics around buggery-as-metaphor, the licence fee here is one of the lowest in Europe & we are a small country. Is RTE/TG4/BAI really that bad considering the budgets they have to play with?

          1. Charley

            Some of the camera work is brutal, the radio presenters are pitiful, the news has turned into a quasi quiz show where you have to read between the lines to guess what the story is.
            Yes it is bad, admittedly TV3 is much worse.

      2. classter

        So obviously there have been blunders along the way & you might easily argue that there have been more mis-steps than might reasonably be expected in setting up a brand new utility company but this story seems innocuous to me.

        Did anybody expect that IW would emerge from the womb as a fully-grown adult?

          1. classter

            Agreed. I still can’t see what would cause outrage in this story though.

            Except that it is about Irish Water.

            I’m guessing the vast bulk of the people commenting on this story won’t have any logical explanation as to what is wrong with this.

          2. Papa P

            “I’m guessing the vast bulk of the people commenting on this story won’t have any logical explanation as to what is wrong with this.”

            You think every utility should have a list of customers and non-customers details?

          3. classter

            Papa P, this story doesn’t say that IW will have this database but that the LGMA will have instead. Please correct me if I am wrong.

        1. Fergus the magic postman

          Nope. Most knew it would be a shambles when it became apparent that positions were awarded not on qualifications to do the job, but on just how cosy you were with the rest of the boys.

          1. classter

            Is that true? I looked at the board after someone said this recently – the four directors are Michael MacNicholas, John Tierney, Brendan Murphy & Michael O’Sullivan.

            I can’t vouch for any of them being outstanding candidates but together they have a pretty good set of experiences – in local govt, in utilities (ESB), other infrastructure-based businesses (NTR), semi-states (BGE) etc.

            Were there better candidates squeezed out?

          2. Fergus the magic postman

            Well there can only have been better candidates than Tierney, who is very experienced in making millions of euros disappear with nothing to show for it.

            I must admit I don’t know much about Michael MacNicholas other than some questionable judgement concerning his owning shares in NTR.

            Brendan Murphy & Michael O’Sullivan are relatively recent appointments, following lots of contoversy over the board which you may remember contained the likes of Coleman Sheehy: https://www.broadsheet.ie/2014/10/29/who-is-the-hot-water-guy/

        2. ollie

          Classter, quango on top of quango on top of quango.

          LGMA, board of 11 members, 6 senior managers, set up to carry out functions carried out by local authorities
          Irish Water, set up to carry out functions carried out by local authorities

          On top of this DSP staff paid to hand out grants, consultants paid to establish yet another database, this time a database of non customers!

          1. classter

            Presumably the idea is that the LGMA allows local authorities (which are tiny) to coordinate their activities & procure as one bigger organisation? Is this a bad thing? Are they doing this badly?

            We clearly diagree on whether there is any merit in having a central water utility.

        3. 15 cents

          yes. i would want it to be born a fully grown adult. instead of a petulant child bumbling about making a mess which we all have to pay for. why do you think it’s such an unrealistic demand to have the company set up in a manner where it performs economically and efficiently? especially when 85 million or whatever was spent on consultancy.. for that amount of money i’d expect it to be flawless .. not the comedy of errors it is now.

          1. classter

            I agree, however it was inevitable that it would not be a seamless & mistake-free. Nothing human ever is. IMO a lot of the crap we are seeing is what went on when there were 31 LAs in the Republic (or whatever the exact number was) except that there was no real public scrutiny on the various councils.

            I agree on the consultants – I have no real idea why the likes of EY & Accenture hoover up so much consultancy work based on the level of ‘expertise’ they seem to contain within them.

    2. Medium Sized C

      Could be the the LGMA is an association of Local Government heads, (John Tierney is a former board member, naturally) and they are non-elected people with the power to say “F. you” to elected officials.

      Could be that the LGMA can give data to social protection about people who they would not have had information about before and “OMGZ UR DATA”.

      Could just be general suspicion about the shambolic mess that is Irish Water and its administration.

  1. Fergus the magic postman

    If RTE stated that Irish Water management have taken to wearing clown costumes and have spent the last year running around bumping into each other, and that Alan Kelly says he’s happy with this, I would be as unsurprised as I am now.

  2. fmong

    “This will involve the setting up of a new website to collect and register the details of non-Irish Water Customers.”

    and this will cost…????

  3. dereviled

    A private company is set-up at a cost of hundreds of millions, utterly fails and the public sector picks up the pieces.
    Meanwhile, this complete travesty turns people against metering and conservation of drinking water.
    Can we have the consultancy fees back?

    1. Medium Sized C

      You are being unfair in a way.

      The way you paint it, is like they are an independent actor in all this.
      The Government have screwed up a lot for Irish Water and continue to do so.

      And this piece of news is another actor altogether, I’m not even sure why Broadsheet chose to put IW’s branding on this post, being as its more to do with Local Government and the DSP than IW.

        1. dereviled

          : D

          I still want the fees justified considering the escalation of costs and the ever decreasing likelihood of us adhering to the European Water Directive 15 years after signing it…

          1. ollie

            Fupp the European Water Directive. We also got a derogation from water charges but this feeble govt chose to lick german bottom instead.

          2. classter

            There are good reasons for water charges that have nothing to do with the pleasant taste experienced when you ‘lick german bottom’.

  4. Shane

    Anyone with an ounce of sense just sees it as a total shambles.
    Now good money is getting thrown after bad.
    The next election is going to stir it up again and whatever decisions and promises are made will cost even more money.
    And we all will have to just pay for it one way or the other. That is the sad truth of it all.

  5. 15 cents

    its such a comedy of errors. they shouldve brought it in during the boom years, no one wouldve noticed. but they try land it down on everyone when we’re all broke and sick of coughin up cash to pay for the errors of the wealthy. the government have firmly lined themselves side by side with the elites, and shown us time and time again that the general public are of no importance to them other than being a cash pinata.

    1. Medium Sized C

      You realise this government and the boom time government were different people?

      I mean the point makes sense in that we should have invested in water infrastructure (we did by the way) during the boom but the rest is kind of silly.

      Not to mention that there is NO WAY FF would have introduced new charges on anything during a period of fiscal profligacy like that.

      1. 15 cents

        and also, yea i know they were diff govs. but FF said they were guna bring in water charges before they lost power.

    1. ollie

      It’s an annual grant that was brought in to replace the tax rebate and social protection measures previously announced.
      DOn’t forget water charges were originally set at the highest rate in the EU to support an overstaffed and overpaid quango. The €100 grant is to replace 20% tax relief on your annual charge of €500, which will be implemented from Jan 1st 2017.

      1. classter

        ‘DOn’t forget water charges were originally set at the highest rate in the EU to support an overstaffed and overpaid quango. ‘

        Source, Ollie?

Comments are closed.

Sponsored Link
Broadsheet.ie