Here's the good news from Irish Water
Too many benefit from the Irish Water bonanza to think of stopping the fantasy now, writes Gene Kerrigan
PUBLISHED29/03/2015 | 02:30
OPEN GALLERY 1
Well, done, Alan Kelly. The dynamic, ambitious Minister for Privatising the Water Supply has done an excellent job. First: there's been a late surge in people signing up with Irish Water - 130,000 in the past month.
And the size of the street protests has been reduced to mere (!) tens of thousands.
Second: his comrade Pat Rabbitte has exposed RTE as a cabal of left-wing infiltrators which, for some reason, has allegedly chosen to act as a "recruiting sergeant" for the anti-Water Tax protesters.
Third: from the Dail debate on water charges comes the news that Irish Water has managed to borrow €300m, at 2.5pc interest.
Fourth: as we gaze in wonder at the achievements of Irish Water we are hugely entertained by an advert that shows us precisely how our money is being used to repair the leaky water system. Well done, Irish Water.
Fifth: even as you read these words, Irish Water's dynamic billing system is poised to spew no fewer than 1.7 million bills right across the State. There won't be a nook or a cranny in which to hide. Wherever you are - like Liam Neeson in an action movie - Irish Water will find you.
And sixth: dynamic, ambitious Alan Kelly, Minister for Threatening Voters, hints that he may set up courts that will fast-track non-payers, so Irish Water can deduct its tax from wages and dole payments.
And - late news - here comes the Commission for Energy Regulation, which has the job of regulating Irish Water and will no doubt do a wonderful - and very fair - job.
It's all go, isn't it? Makes you wonder what all the fuss was about.
From the beginning, the Irish Water project has been based on a fantasy.
The company will borrow billions. But this money won't go onto the government debt, because (wink, nudge) Irish Water is an independent commercial company.
Thus, the government can use the company to do its borrowing, keeping the fiscal deficit (God bless it) below the target set by the state's head office in Frankfurt.
The actual level of government debt doesn't matter - it's the appearance that matters.
This glow of fantasy now permeates the whole Irish Water project. Just about everything they've claimed above is fantasy.
What? You mean, there hasn't been a surge of 130,000 signing up to Irish Water in March, like the minister says?
Joe Higgins has noticed that at the end of February the figure of total sign-ups given by Irish Water was virtually the same as the figure now. There was no surge.
Who ya gonna believe? The Minister? Or Irish Water? Your choice.
But, you can't deny that RTE is hopelessly biased in favour of people who throw water balloons at Joan Burton?
Well, the Irish Times did a detailed assessment of the spread of interviews carried on 11 RTE programmes - and the pro and anti politicians seemed to me to get a fair shake.
Mind you, the Irish Times said that if you divide the number of interviews by the percentage of votes each party got at the last election you might see a certain bias that - wait a minute.
That's nonsense. That would mean a huge grassroots movement, tens of thousands on the streets, hundreds of thousands refusing to pay - could not be recognised by RTE, because it didn't get votes at the last election.
The allegation from Rabbitte is silly. And I don't go along with the anti-water-tax people who claim that RTE is the state's mouthpiece.
Some within RTE kiss government ass - it's a habit. Some have conservative mindsets that so favour the status quo that they aren't even aware of their bias. And there has also been much exemplary and rigorously fair reporting from RTE.
It's good news about Irish Water being able to borrow €300m, right?
At 2.5pc? Barry Cowen pointed out in the Dail that the National Treasury folk borrow on behalf of the state at 1pc. But, of course, we've got to shell out real money to preserve the fantasy structure of this whole project.
Well, at least we have that cartoon advert in which Irish Water magically fixes the water supply, neglected for decades by the likes of Enda Kenny.
We do, indeed, at a cost of €650,000.
And doesn't it merely make our point?
To show Irish Water fixing leaks they have to use animation - because instead of spending hundreds of millions fixing the leaks, Irish Water is spending hundreds of millions installing meters. Allegedly to raise money to, eh, fix the leaks.
At least, the 1.7 million bills they're about to send out are real.
Unfortunately, the company admits that 700,000 of the bills will be incorrect. People will "get a bill that they should not get".
They've got 750 workers standing by at a 24-hours-a-day call centre, so when you get your bill you can ring and ask if it's correct. That should cost a million or ten.
The fast-track courts?
That's dynamic Alan Kelly being too gutless to substantiate his threats with detail. Some flunky leaks the threat and Alan says he can't comment, as he hasn't brought any measures to Cabinet yet.
The notion of the State enforcing debt collection on behalf of an allegedly commercial company - that will undermine the whole project, even if Eurostat is persuaded to accept massaged figures.
Irish Water is a fantasy out of control. And it doesn't just cost us huge money paid to executives, plus bonuses (or what they insist on calling "performance-based awards"). It costs tens of millions shovelled out to consultants.
So many of the already well-off have profited from the fantasy that it's hard to see how these people can get their heads out of the trough long enough to recognise reality. Why would they wish to, when the fantasy pays so well? Politicians just plod on, hoping something will change.
This Commission for Energy Regulation, which is supposed to regulate Irish Water - the Dail was told the CER wants to hire consultants to advise them how to regulate Irish Water. And the going rate is €900,000.
Meanwhile, consultants are doing their best to equip ministers with sound bites, in order to divide us.
Well-paid advisers have prepared little anecdotes for ministers to spout - about two people sitting on a bus, one pays the Water Tax and the other doesn't. And the government just wants to treat us equally, fairly.
The truth is, the person sitting beside me on the bus isn't affected at all. If I pay, their Water Tax won't go down; if I don't pay it won't go up. Kelly and his comrades have been told to talk of us as selfish people who "don't want to pay for anything". I've been paying taxes since before Kelly was born and I've never complained and never will - I like to have street lights and nurses and cops and roads and sewers, and I'm happy to pay for them.
I'm not happy to be a patsy for a fantasy project with the declared purpose (it's in their internal documents) of turning us from "citizens" into "customers". I'm not happy that these people refuse to concentrate on the desperate state of the water pipes - instead, they concentrate on installing their "revenue stream".
Among those last week telling us to behave ourselves was, I'm told, Brendan Howlin, the Minister for Policing Austerity. Unfortunately, I don't have a note of what Brendan said.
But I do have a quote from him, from immediately before the last general election: "We're not in favour of water charges... our manifesto has set out that we are against water charges".
Sunday Independent
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