Of your pocket.
Anyone?
Via PatRabbitteTD (parody account)
Tag Archives: Irish Water
Paul Byrne, of TV3, tweets:
Breaking: Irish Water workers are removing meters from Ashbrook Heights Cork. Protesters claim victory.
Previously: Stopcock Blockers
UPDATE: Newstalk is reporting that Irish Water are not removing water meters in Ashbrook Heights.
It reports:
“Irish Water has said they are not removing any boundary boxes, insisting the meters have been taken out to facilitate remedial work to footpaths damaged during installation. ”
“The organisation claims they were prevented from completing footpath works during the initial installation phase, by protesters.”
Cork water protesters claim victory as Irish Water removes meters (Newstalk)
This morning, RTE reports that Irish Water will invest almost €1.8billion in water and waste treatment improvements over the next three years and that billions more will be spent over the following five or six years.
It reports:
“The investment, which is substantially more than the indicative funding available to the utility, will deliver urgently needed improvements in drinking water quality, leakage, water availability, and waste water compliance.
Five months after being set up by the Government Irish Water is now taking control, reprioritizing, and ramping up the water infrastructure programmes of our 34 local authorities.”
Meanwhile, yesterday afternoon Green Party local candidate for Cork South West, Mick Murphy, lodged a letter with the Petition Section of the European Commission, based at the European Union House on Dawson Street in Dublin, asking it to investigate the establishment of Irish Water.
He has since received a response from the European Commission asking whether he wishes his complaint to go the European Commission or directly to the EU Parliament. After getting legal advice, Mr Murphy has asked that his complaint be addressed by the EU Parliament.
This was Mr Murphy’s letter:
To Whom It May Concern:
I wish to petition the European Commission to investigate the handing over of strategic infrastructure by the Irish government that was heavily funded by European Union funds to a private company that is a monopoly and engages in price fixing by the very fact that no competition to this company exists in the Irish market.
The Minister of Environment Community & Local Government in Ireland [Phil Hogan] made provision this year for local authorities all over Ireland to hand over strategic infrastructure including water treatment plants, water pumping stations and foul water treatment plants to a private company known as ‘Irish Water’ at no cost to the company.
This infrastructure is worth in excess of a billion euro and was heavily funded by the European Union over the past number of decades.
I am of the opinion that to use such funding from the European Union either through direct cash funding, or indirect funding through the handing over of assets is in breach of European Union funding rules and is also in breach of EU Competition Laws that prevent EU funding going towards the establishment of a market monopoly, or support for same.
I would be obliged if you could investigate this matter by way of petition?
Yours sincerely,
Mick Murphy,
Green Party,
Cork City South West.
Anyone?
Irish Water to invest €1.8 billion in water and waste treatment (RTE)
Previously: How Much?
This morning in Wexford.
Brenda O’Carroll writes:
“Residents and supporters have started to protest AGAINST the installation of Irish Water meters in Hazelwood Estate, Bridgetown, Co. Wexford…”
Meanwhile…
A sit-down in Baldoyle, Dublin this afternoon.
Environment Minister Phil Hogan at the launch of Fine Gael’s local election campaign at the Shelbourne Hotel in Dublin last week
RTÉ’s Martina Fitzgerald tweetz from a press conference about Irish Water charges just minutes ago.
Previously: Water You Gonna Do
Sasko Lazarov/Photocall Ireland
Edenmore, Raheny, Dublin.
Mike O’Brien writes:
“Water meter protesters in Edenmore this afternoon. Workmen seem to have legged it…”
Eoin English tweetz:
The latest Irish Water meter protest – in Elmvale, Cork. It brings to four the number of such blockades in the area.
Oh, it’s on.
Previously: Water Protests Everywhere
Pic: Eoin English
Pamela Flynn writes:
This is a shore that was removed by Irish Water today. We were told that the workers were allowed sell these for scrap and use it for beer money. As you can see it weighs just under 5kg. How much would this bring as scrap value?- does anyone know? Could this money not be better used to offset the cost of the metering scheme?
Anyone?
Meanwhile…
In Edenmore, Raheny, Dublin, this afternoon:
Thanks STP
[From top: Irish Water logo and Eamon Ryan, of the Green Party, on Tonight with Vincent Browne last night]
In early 2011, a study on the setting up of Irish Water – carried out by PricewaterhouseCoopers and McCann Fitzgerald – was to be delivered to the Department of the Environment by the following September, and that Bord na Móna had expressed an interest in taking on the role.
In April 2012, the tender for Irish Water was awarded to Bord Gáis. Environment minister Phil Hogan said ‘the outside assessors..had made the decision based on a long list of criteria’.
On last night’s Tonight with Vincent Browne on TV3, former minister Eamon Ryan – who was joined on the panel by Harry McGee, political correspondent with the Irish Times; Joan Collins, TD from the United Left Alliance and Damien English, TD from Fine Gael – brought up the PWC report and claimed Fine Gael and Labour changed the report’s terms of reference without any public announcement.
Eamon Ryan: “You [to Damien English] said there that you looked at all the options, you didn’t. You came in to Government there was a PricewaterhouseCoopers study looking at various different ways you could do it without any public announcement, the terms of reference of that study was changed because, as I said, there was a deal done already be Fine Gael and Labour into how it would be done.
“It would be given to Bord Gáis, it would be done through the bond markets and so you came in with a fixed view as to how it was going to be done. You didn’t think through how are we going to deliver the meters before we go to the public and you lost the public confidence because of that approach and they don’t see any savings coming and that’s the problem, it’s not in my mind the principle that we have to try and cut back our wasteful use of water, and yes a charge is part of that, but you’ve lost the public because you don’t have the metering, you don’t have savings and you don’t have, and you didn’t even look at different options, how it might be delivered and that’s why it’s going wrong.“
Anyone?
Earlier in the show, Mr McGee summed up the immediate problems that Labour face due to the developing crisis facing Irish Water.
Harry McGee: “There are a couple, kind of issues that are pertinent, I mean, at the moment, it has been labelled as a charge but it’s looking suspiciously like a tax because the water metering programme has just started and they don’t have a snowball’s hope in hell of having 1.1million homes water metered within the next two and a half years, so people are going to have to be charged on the basis of an assessed charge and that’s innately unfair. And the second difficulty is that there is a wedge between Fine Gael and Labour in Government in relation to the charge. One of the things that’s coming back to haunt the Labour party is that famous Tesco ad, from before the election where they warned people of the prospect of Fine Gael in Government. And one of the things they warned about was that water charges would be €239 per annum. And, geronimo, what do we have but a Fine Gael proposal coming forward with €240 per annum. The difficulty, from a Labour perspective, with the Fine Gael proposal is that they want to make a few exceptions, they want most households in the country to pay an average of €240 while the Labour party want us to make as many exceptions as possible. There is a line in the commitment, in the Programme for Government that there be a generous water allowance and both parties have to find that very differently and it’s become critical for the Labour party, what the Tánaiste said today was quite telling. Fine Gael were saying that they would give us clarity in relation to the pricing structure within ten days and now we hear the Labour party’s saying ‘well, the most important thing is to get it right’. ”
Vincent Browne: “Enda Kenny made it absolutely clear….”
McGee: “And I guarantee they won’t get it right until after the 23rd [of May, when the local and European elections take place].
Vincent Browne: “Enda Kenny has made it absolutely clear, we will be told before the local and European elections what the system is, what the charges are going to be. He’s made that clear in the Dáil last week.”
McGee: “He did but Eamon Gilmore equally made it clear that might not necessarily might be the case. He said that Labour would not be beholden to a Fine Gael timetable.”
Watch back in full here
Previously: Thicker Than Uisce
