48 thoughts on “The Shapes Of Irish Water

  1. GiggidyGoo

    IndoSpinMachine. Someone clinging on to a faint hope that he will get the gig.
    Disband this IW now. It’s the councils and sub contractors that are doing the work, not IW.
    Referendum is required. Why hasn’t one been called? No reason given.

    1. b

      i believe the government are busy with another referendum rather than giving the socialists another ball to play with

      1. Topsy

        The “socialists” as u call them (more commonly known as the people) don’t need another ball to play. The game is over and the “socialists” have won the game. Now go & check the results and bring yourself up to date.

    1. Cian

      It says we need to invest in water infrastructure.

      From the comments here you would think that this is a bad thing…

      1. Daisy Chainsaw

        Just think of the several hundred millions of euro wasted on installing meters, billing, unnecessary staff, PR, gyms, etc that could have been invested in water infrastructure. Hundreds of millions will be saved when IW is disbanded and the work given back to the councils to do directly, rather than IW contracting them anyway.

        That “editorial” is basically a memo from butthurt Redacted O’Bribe that he didn’t get the income stream promised by his staff in FG.

        1. Cian

          You’re not wrong about the first sentence.

          But having a single water entity makes sense.

          There is a single NRA looking after the main roads – rather than each council maintain individual stretches of national road.
          There is a single ESB Network looking after all power lines.
          There is a single Gas pipeline entity looking after all gas lines.

          There should be the same for water.

          1. Daisy Chainsaw

            There’s more to roads than national roads. The councils were out clearing the snow in towns, not the NRA and the councils will be contracted by IW to fix the pipes.

          2. some old queen

            Agreed. Even the cost savings of central tendering alone should make Irish Water a viable proposition. But the problems are twofold, politicians and councils.

            Politicians should be let nowhere near public utility projects because they are guaranteed to make a mess of it. They yapped on about how Europe demanded polluter pays while deliberately ignoring the fact that Europe is way more concerned about Ireland pumping raw sewage into the sea.

            And then there are the councils, 31 of them, all doing their own thing. Trying to reach an agreement on anything with them would be like trying to hoard mice at a crossroads. Mainly because they don’t want to relinquish control of course.

          3. Truth in the News

            The structure was there before there was an ESB, Irish Gas, and IW are there
            with 5 years and they haven’t fixed many leaks, its the existing county councils
            and contractors that do the work, …what we have is QUANGO in control of water
            Maybe Stephen Rea might take over running IW on behalf of “redacted”

          4. some old queen

            If the behaviour of Irish Water’s human resources is anything to go by, you are probably right. On a national scale, it operates like a small county council.

            But, even with the councils maintaining and fixing the leaks, centralising control of all major national projects in Cork was a terrible idea. Irish Water is not anything like the now defunct Bord Gáis.

            No part will be privatised. Otherwise politician’s heads will swing in the breeze from the top of the Spire.

  2. The Ghost of Starina

    mm, more state propaganda.

    meanwhile, I had to shower in work this morning cos apparently IW think “full service” means a dribble, while “reduced service” means no water. Cheers.

      1. The Ghost of Starina

        is that the one where I bury myself in dirt up to my neck for 3 days while the toxins are expelled?

  3. George

    Water should have been shut off completely from midnight until 6am as soon as the weather hit freezing so that the people who run there taps would realise there was no point doing it at all. It doesn’t work anyway. At very least water waste would have been dramatically reduced.

  4. anyone

    I actually did see some fool on TV telling people to do it though, or maybe it was in the Irish times
    I’ll look around again and see if I can find it

    1. Andyourpointiswhatexactly?

      Didn’t somebody say it on here? That they do it in… I wanna sayyy Norway, but I obviously pay zero attention to what anyone says on Broadsheet.

    2. postmanpat

      Probably some codgery baby boomer who thinks that’s florescent light bulbs use more electricity turning them off and on again ( so you may as well just leave them on as well as leave the TV plugged in all night) and believes that pedigree dogs are just as healthy as mixed breeds and not just interbred , epileptics born to suffer from a long list of diseases that wolves never suffered from before they were domesticated. The same generation that used to drink 8 pints and “be grand ” behind the wheel, must have red meat with every meal, breakfast , lunch and dinner. Big bellyed , rummy nosed, casually racist and sexist pigs that drive king of the road SUVs.

  5. postmanpat

    You can tell this is an advertisement disguised as an article because the grammar and spelling is correct. The rest of the Indo is usually reprinted pieces from other newspapers and silly Brasseye type pie charts and graphs.

  6. Fact Checker

    Would water charges really have deterred anyone from running their taps to stave off freezing pipes?

    IW would have charged you a mere €10 for about thousand litres of water. This would easily have allowed you to run a gentle trickle for several days.

    Compared to the cost of burst pipes, it is not prohibitive to a householder.

  7. some old queen

    “Seamlessly and needlessly run their taps”. Running taps prevents water from freezing. Frozen water expands by up to 9%, which is why pipes burst after such weather. After temperatures reached minus ten in places, upon a thaw, a pipe could have taken weeks to fix and that is just those on private grounds. And there is no point saying those pipes would not have burst because no one knows the extent of weak points on the network.

    Extraordinarily stupid stuff handing a stick to its critics like this. Why are some so determined to keep playing Irish Water as a political football? The staff, most of whom I expect is there for good and genuine professional reasons, must be increasingly frustrated by this ham-fisted communications nonsense.

      1. some old queen

        Ok I’ll qualify that by saying that running water prevents freezing up to a point. The movement means that the temperature must be lower. That is ground temperature, not air of course.

  8. Father Filth

    ..isn’t it the case that uhh.. absent minded builders didn’t sink the pipes to the required depth during the last wave of quality Tiger home building. A lot of the burst pipe problems are typically with buildings built quite recently.

    I think water should be given a ‘worth’, my parents pay for it abroad, but.. and it’s one key feature that is absent from Ireland, the figures and expenditure are very much ‘open hand’, whereas here in Ireland, any data of that kind is squirelled away for, ‘commercial reasons’.

    That’s not acceptable.

  9. Bs

    Indo. Owned by [redacted] who owns siteserv who own Sierra who got the contract to fit water meters wants more water meters installed. Shocking.

    There was plenty of money going to local county councils over the last 35 years to fix the water infrastructure twice over…I wonder where it all went. Anyone questioning those “unpalatable facts” while we’re talking facts, can anyone prove that people left their taps running? Could it be possible that because 99% of the population were at home for 3 solid days that we used more water?!

    1. Cian

      Bs: while you’re talking about facts. can you show some sources please? relating to money going to councils?

      And also – how does being at home use more water?
      When I’m in work I drink water and flush the loo. There is a dishwasher that cleans the mugs.
      When I’m home I drink water and flush the loo. There is a dishwasher that cleans the mugs.

    2. some old queen

      Do you have any stats on council funding? I ask because the broad assumption is that the industry was starved of money, hence the decrepit state. I find it hard to believe that all councils were so flaithiúlach in their spending, even if true.

      1. Bs

        I don’t have any figures no. But where did the 6% of motor tax and 2% of vat that is ringfenced for water infrastructure disappear to? Assuming it got to the local councils, what was it used on?

        People being stuck at home for 3 or 4 days will use more water. More cooking being done, 3 meals in a day compared to someone who leaves the house at 7 and comes home at 6, more cups of tea being drunk, more dishes to wash due to more meals being eaten, kids coming in filthy from playing in the snow need more baths etc etc etc

        Not hard to imagine it’s possible. Sure Irish water should have all the stats from the wonderful meters…

        1. rotide

          Can you explain how being at home leads to more of these things?

          How do kids get filthy from playing in the snow, are they wearing shorts and t-shirts? Are you saying that the person who leaves the house at 6 and doesn’t return till 7 doesn’t eat or drink while out?

  10. AssPants

    EVERYBODY WAS FUBBING HOME…..HENCE THE ALLEGED “SPIKE” IN WATER USAGE.

    How does Irish Water know when a tap is running needlessly; or when there is a kettle under the tap.

    More from Leo’s SCU by the looks of things.

    1. some old queen

      Unless Ireland has somehow managed to defy science, the spike was mainly due to leaks after a freeze. But, feel free to carry on. Pretty sure you are remunerated to do so.

  11. scotttser

    ok, hands up. who ran their taps needlessly during the storm emma? come on. jimmey russell, charger salmons, nigel – i’m looking at you guys. bertie was suspiciously clean during this whole episode. eh? eh?

    1. Nigel

      I was running taps I held tap-races up and down the stairs, took bets and everything but it all fell apart when one of them as found to have taken performance-enhancing lugs.

  12. dav

    redacted must be getting desperate, he had his radio station bleating the same muck since Monday morning, he must need the promise of owning irish water to keep the hedge fund-collectors from his door…

  13. rotide

    Good lord, one baseless blog from Ogle and all this starts up again. It’s like the paranoid fantasists are just waiting for the chance to indulge themselves.

    I’m yet to see any hard evidence of how this statement from IW is going to lead to privatisation.

    Also, there are a lot of people on this website that can’t seem to get their heads around a zero sum system.

  14. ahjayzis

    Where’s the evidence the extra demand is down to idiots leaving their taps running?

    Celbridge had two major leaks in the main pipelines over the last week – how much of the waste in the area comes from that? They were asbestos pipes so couldn’t be looked at by IW until they hired in specialist contractors.

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