Reporter Brian O’Connell researched the PR operations – internal and external – of eight state agencies. Including…Irish Water.
Mr O’Connell went on RTÉ Radio One’s Today with Sean O’Rourke to bring the details.
“Internal communications: 11 people working in Ervia and Irish Water across the full range of of media and communications for Irish Water. Ervia does not disclose salary information for employees.
External communications : They have a panel of service providers in accordance with relevant EU and Irish procurement rules and they say this is to get the most competitive rate.
In total, Five public relations agencies have been appointed to provide services to the Ervia group of companies, which includes Ervia, Gas Networks Ireland and Irish Water.
A panel of two consumer PR agencies was appointed by Ervia in January 2014 – PSG Communications and The Reputations Agency.
These appointments were made for three years with an option to extend for a further two years at Ervia’s sole discretion. The services provided pursuant to these appointments include consumer public relations, event management etc.
A panel of three corporate public relations and public affairs agencies was appointed by Ervia in October 2014 following a competitive tender process run in adherence to the applicable procurement laws and approval from the Ervia board.
This panel consists of Murray Consultants, Q4 PR and Edelman Ireland. These appointments are run for three years with an option to extend for a further two years at Ervia’s sole discretion. The services provided pursuant to these appointments include corporate, financial and crisis public relations and public affairs.
Ervia do not disclose detail in relation to contract value. But it wouldn’t be uncommon to have these kind of services cost between €700 and €1500 a day.
There you go now.
Listen in full here
(audio may be posted later)
Where do FF and Sinn Fein stand. If either got into power would they abolish the charges?
IW is managed/advised by Accenture.
there’s your leaky-pipe money right there.
Súlach Éireann.
This just a pressure valve distraction by RTE. This isn’t unusual or controversial. It’s just an attempt to satisfy the outrage appetite.
What is worth more coverage is above comment regarding Accenture. If that’s the case, it suggests Accenture are Irish Water and are simply minding it as they prepare it for privatization.
It’s like when a parent ‘helps’ a child with their school project. The child thinks they did it all but the parent guided them in the right direction.
“it suggests Accenture are Irish Water and are simply minding it as they prepare it for privatization.”
Baloney.
Accenture have contracts with many government agencies and semi states. You might as well say that the company providing their software or canteen facilities are just minding it before privatisation.
Accenture also run many of the systems in An Garda and the Revenue Commissioners. Are these also being prepared for privatisation. Time to grab the tin foil hat.
Clearly that’s why the gardaí are acting as corporate enforcers. Accenture run the country. I wonder have they contracts with the ECB or IMF?
That’s not how Accenture works. They either outsource HR, IT or financial departments and run them for the company/state body, or they establish and implement infrastructural projects.
So while Accenture did consult on the formation of Irish Water, it would have been the government or Bord Gais/Ervia who went to them and said “we want to do this”, and Accenture would have given them a road map on how to do that.
It could well have been “we want to set up a semi-state organisation with the intent of privatising it in X years”, but Accenture wouldn’t have been the ones to suggest it.
Well, it’s certainly working. Irish Water is a well-managed, well-thought-out enterprise providing innovative and value-for-money solutions to its lucky customers on time and within budget and displaying an overall level of transparency that’s unprecedented, and anyone who’s concluded something to the contrary – like they’re a shower of complete and utter incompetents and about as useful as a one-armed trapeze artist with an itchy bumhole – is clearly deluded and hasn’t been listening enough to their wonderful spokeswoman.
irish gravy should start a campaign saying ‘sorry, you can’t join us. we’re too exclusive for you’. folks will be falling over themselves to sign up.
Or just call it iWater. People will be queuing around the block the night before a payment deadline.
iWater is for the people in Roscommon etc where it’s not fit for drinking, where it is fit for drinking it should be branded iWater 2.0
And who’s fault is it for letting farmers in Roscommon allow their cattle piss and shit into Roscommon water sources ??
Oh yes…that would be the Roscommon county council which counts Ming as an alumni. Think that might have led to the years of boil water notices…couldn’t be sure though
You should come and work for me
I prefer
Accentre Formally known as Andersons
Formerly known as Andersen Consulting.
Arthur Andersen proper were the guys who fupped up with Enron etc.
My brother worked for them, hence my scary amazing knowledge. Which amounts to the previous two sentences.
Well actually I did know them as Arthur Anderson
And yeah. They’re the reason the word Compliance has taken over the workplace.
and SOX
and Revenue Recognition
Yep. It all started with Enron and their Auditors
Too busy scratching each others backs to jab a knife in there… for now
So an organisation that needs to communicate with the entire population and is subject to intense media speculation has communications expertise and hires PR/Communications agencies – shock horror
As someone who used to work in PR I find it hilarious that journalists pretend to be so anti PR – OK its a love/hate relationship but they couldnt do their job without PR people.
here’s the structure
Company-PR-Media-Public
Without PR you have journalists trying to talk directly to people in companies who have no experience doing interviews etc. This always goes really badly as being interviewed by a journalist is a terrifying and intimidating experience – the journo has all the power. So people either clam up or babble away and the result is useless for the journo and the company.
Everyone thinks that it is the PR people making a big barrier between the company and the media. In my limited experience it is completely the other way around. The company is either looking to deliver blatantly commercial messages which the journo wont print or the attitude is “tell him to fuck off” which is no good either. The PR people know what the journo and their outlet are interested in and work with the company to coax useful information out of them, while being careful not to say anything that’s untrue, stupid or that will come back to bite them. When it gets political the PR people also have the contacts in government that the company needs to explain itself to
Whether people like it or not that is a skill and there are only 50 or 60 people in ireland that have been doing it at a senior level for a long time. Some of them work with Murray, Q4 and Edelman so if you need those skills you have to hire those companies – duh! Its no secret, look on the websites – their CV’s are up there.
http://www.murrayconsult.ie/people
http://www.q4pr.ie/peopleoverview.htm
…Auntie Terry is going to be very cross with you Donal.
Your so called professionals are doign a bang-up job at Irish Water.
PR are spin merchants. Their sole function is to obfusecate the truth.
PR companies in Ireland have done untold damage to this country by helping the chancers and gangsters bury the bodies.
figured it would get a reaction like that
Look I’m not saying they are angels or amazing people – there are as many assholes working in PR as there are in any other business. Im not defending them, I’m just explaining how I saw it when I worked in the business
I do agree they are doing pretty badly in Irish water – but in fairness, it was a really tough one!
What I dont get is why people who are against the system try so hard to not understand it! If you want to fight against the powers then take the time to learn how it really works instead of these bizarre simplistic fantasies.
Think about this. Every Pr company has dozens of clients. But there are very few real journalists, especially business journalists. So PR people aren’t going to burn a journalist by getting him to print something that’s false – that journo will never trust them again. The client that is having a crisis will prefer to say nothing but there is no credibility in that. So what you imagine is PR obfuscation is more likely PR dragging info out of a reluctant client. PR people dont make any of the business decisions behind the news – they just have to deal with the jounrnos asking about it.
Another thing is that people always imagine the journos as the dumb muppets swallowing everything that the evil PR people force feed them. In reality the journos have all the power and treat the PR people like shit. That’s fine – its the way it should be in a society with free press.PR people dont have the power to bury anything! At best they can distract a bit but if a journalist really wants to find something then what the PR person does is irrelevant.
What you really need in Ireland is an independent combative, well-funded, investigative news outlet that has the time to go in and get to the bottom of all these stories. The trouble is what you have instead is people who are so anti-system that all they see are conspiracy theories
Thanks Donal – interesting perspective
Here Donie. Don’t all these companies already have PR and Morketing depts?
And all that PR effort flounders on the rocks of a spontaneous, self-replicating meme:
“You can stick your water meters up your arse!”
How does IW compare to the other state agencies….
PR = Rolling turds in glitter.
Great at shredding
@Frilly
Ha
But at least some of them did time
And knockout fines
No sign of an’ting like that with Anglo’s Auditors