As Fine Gael and Fianna Fáil continue to wrangle over the future of Irish Water, the Association of Consulting Engineers of Ireland (ACEI) has come down firmly in favour of retaining the national utility on the grounds of efficiency and cost effectiveness. Referring to decades of under-investment by local authorities, it concluded that dismantling Irish Water could undermine the progress already made in reducing 'boil water' notices and minimising pollution.
Politics should not trump the public interest. And the latter is firmly wedded to issues involving health protection, a more cost-effective service and safeguarding the environment. Getting rid of Irish Water would threaten all of these concerns, according to ACEI. Its abolition as a national utility would restrain capital and operational investment and damage the prospect of establishing national priorities for future development.
Serious political mistakes were made in the way Irish Water was established and funded. EU Commissioner Phil Hogan was the prime architect of that fiasco. Public resentment, following years of austerity, was inflamed by the new charge and by profligate spending. Attempts to assuage that anger through a variety of poorly thought out concessions magnified political opposition, with both Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil moving from tacit acceptance of the charge to outright rejection.
It is typical of Irish politics that current negotiations are being conducted in a bubble, concentrating on the suspension of charges and abolition of Irish Water. Little is heard about long term effects: the nature and funding of an alternative system; whether it may be less efficient and more expensive and the implications of absorbing bonus-funded Irish Water employees into the civil service. In addition, the European Commission may impose financial penalties if it finds the Water Framework Directive has been breached.
What happens to Irish Water’s five-year business plan? It proposes to spend €5.5 billion by 2021 on national priority schemes, on mending leaks, on improving drinking water quality and on reducing pollution through sewage outfalls. If water charges are abolished or suspended and private sector funding is ruled out, where will the money come from? The ACEI is worried and with good reason. That €5.5 billion would gobble up most of the ‘fiscal space’ available to an incoming government for housing, health and education issues, apart altogether from growing public service pay demands. It is a scary prospect.
There is, as the saying goes, no such thing as a free lunch. In this instance, there is no such thing as free water or free sewage treatment. Services have to be paid for and Irish Water, for all its original faults, has made real progress in delivering a more effective and efficient service. Abandoning a single, national utility model makes no sense.