The Irish 'Spring Water' Revolution.
Ireland – as famous for its freshwater lakes and rivers as it is for the soft rain which replenishes them and nourishes the verdant green hills.
Surrounded by some of the best water in the world – and they are up in arms! On the point of revolution, no less. The Irish government are threatening to charge Irish citizens for delivering it to their door…
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams has threatened to refuse to take his seat in parliament (haven’t we been here before? Will he be taking his salary again?) unless the government drop their intention to install water meters.
The Irish government have said: “We cannot go on paying €1.2 billion per year for the production of water, with 40 per cent of it leaking away, thousands of people on boil water notices, dozens of treatment works not up to standard, and kilometres by the thousand of inferior pipework,’’ he said. The money has to come from somewhere.
50,000 people, if you believe Russia Today, or 100,000, if you subscribe to the views of the Trade Union organised ‘Right2Water Campaign’, took to the streets of Dublin on Saturday, wearing taps wrapped in tin foil on their head.
‘Water is a human right – without it, we die’. Indeed. Emotive soundbites. Is it also a human right to have it delivered to the tap in your kitchen though?
Curiously, Ireland is one of the few places in the world where you really do have a right to free water – and no less a body than ‘Irish Water’, the hated organisation that is installing the meters, will help you get a grant to pay for the drilling of a well in your back garden – and then not charge you for water any longer. True, if you don’t want the laborious work of pumping a handle on a frosty morning, you will have to pay for the cost of an electric pump to deliver the water to your tap.
Anti-austerity campaigners were out in force, noisily encouraging citizens not to pay the water bills that will arrive in January. ‘Can’t pay, won’t pay’ was the cry as they lined up unemployed citizens, living on the bread-line, for the perusal of television interviewers from Australia, Russia and all points in between.
A glance at the web site of ‘Irish Water’ – and you will see that ‘Can’t Pay’ doesn’t have to pay – everyone gets 30,000 litres of water entirely free of charge, with an extra 21,000 litres per child that requires the occasional scrub down. Beyond that, you pay €2.44 (just under two pounds) per 1,000 litres of extra water. Those who are on benefits are given €100 a year to pay for this. Those who have medical needs, such as dialysis patients are exempt.
But 40% of the water is leaking away through antiquated piping – why should we pay for that, goes the cry? You don’t have to – by installing a water meter, you will be able to see if any of the water going through your meter is leaking away, and if it is – guess what? ‘Irish Water’ will come and repair your pipes for free.
If you don’t pay the water bill, they won’t cut you off – they will (or are threatening to, though I don’t see how this will work in blocks of flats) cut your water supply down to a ‘trickle’ – there won’t be enough pressure to power the dishwasher, washing machine, or jacuzzi that every self-respecting austerity hit household has these days. There will just be enough water to drink, cook and wash with – that you won’t be paying for.
At the moment, water delivery is paid for by taxation – meaning that only those with jobs or businesses are paying for it. Water meters mean that everybody pays for what they use – shades of the Poll Tax and the ill named ‘Bedroom Tax’ here.
Even the BBC coverage of this charge started off with ‘Tap water in the Republic of Ireland until now has been free’. It has never been ‘free’. Other people were paying for it – it didn’t get into your tap by dint of a leprechaun. Now that organisation so beloved of the left – the EU and the IMF – have insisted that the charge be equally apportioned.
Why is it that the left wing who are so vociferously in favour of ‘equality’ have a nervous breakdown and organise mass demonstrations against any government that tries to treat its citizens equally?
- Ho Hum
October 14, 2014 at 11:42 am -
This is one story, about which it is difficult to conclude that the situation has arisen because those involved disengaged their brains
- Robert the Biker
October 14, 2014 at 12:01 pm -
Yet again the cry goes up “I want this, but I want HIM to pay for it!”
The idea of stuff being ‘free’ is a hard one to dislodge, people have to clue in to the fact that someone somewhere pays for it and said someones are getting fed up with being ripped off to pander to the work shy scroungers who make the most noise.
Sounds like there could be jobs for men with shovels in Ireland.- Ho Hum
October 14, 2014 at 12:15 pm -
So, would you rather your tax went directly to pay for such services, with no leakage, so to speak, or indirectly, via the work shy scroungers so that they might appear to be paying for them, with the possible consequence that, as might not unreasonably be supposed, some proportion is hijacked and dissipated on wine, women and song, ending up with you paying even more for what you yourself get now?
Sometimes I’m not too sure that everyone gets how the Great Circle of Life’s tax cycles work…
- Robert the Biker
October 14, 2014 at 12:39 pm -
I would rather, since you ask, that everyone paid , that way all bills would be lower; what gets my back up is my being expected to pay all my bills while the dole scrounger next door gets it all for ‘free’ while I pay sky high prices. I do get how tax works; in the real world, I pay, he moans about the hardness of the world. A well in the back garden sounds good, then next door could fuck straight off!
- the moon is a balloon
October 14, 2014 at 2:12 pm -
And it is easier and less costly than you might imagine.
- the moon is a balloon
- Robert the Biker
- Ho Hum
- Penseivat
October 14, 2014 at 12:07 pm -
If the saviour of the world, St Bonio, paid his taxes to the country he is a citizen of, and which he loves ‘loike no other’, then Irish Water would be able to fill every swimming pool, bath and hot tub in the land with free water personally dispensed by bikini (green in colour of course) clad young colleens smiling sweetly, singing lovely, charming, melodies (which lets out anything by U2 then) with a bit left over to mend the pipes. Water is not a human right, it is as human necessity. Apart from that, I’m with Ho Hum.
- Ho Hum
October 14, 2014 at 12:18 pm -
I’d not be surprised if they were pro Global Warming, on the basis that they’d then get water from above and below
- MTG
October 14, 2014 at 7:02 pm -
Ms Raccoon makes the point that water is a human right and you might have spotted the reference had you exercised the initial courtesy of reading her post.
- Engineer
October 14, 2014 at 7:37 pm -
Access to clean water is a human right, but having water piped to your home is not. It’s a considerable convenience (especially in the Convenience) but it’s no more a Human Right than a piped gas supply, a connection to the National Grid or a super-fast broadband connection. It’s a Human Right to go about your life without fear of unlawful arrest, to speak freely or to choose where you live or work, and not to be denied adequate food. Big things, that we in the civilised world mostly take for granted, are Human Rights. Extending that to cover non-essential but useful conveniences might be regarded as a form of political ‘mission creep’.
- Engineer
- Ho Hum
- The Blocked Dwarf
October 14, 2014 at 12:18 pm -
Bleed the Beast and the Beast’s life blood is a mix of oil and water (probably has feet of ‘mayo’ not clay, Daniel my Ol’ Son). Society wants to ‘entnormalisiert’ me (sounds scarier in the original German, dunnit?), therefore I won’t act ‘normal’.
- Duncan Disorderly
October 14, 2014 at 12:31 pm -
Ireland is a very wet nation that has no trouble getting adequate rainfall. The problem is getting drinkable water to peoples houses. I suspect that, unless people are massively wasting water in their homes because there is no meter, it would be easy to increase taxes to pay for the additional investment required. This is especially true given the cost of metering, and the free water allowances that people will get anyway.
Also, why has something as basic as the water supply been allowed to go to waste like this?
- Mudplugger
October 14, 2014 at 12:44 pm -
In the world of state supplies, if something doesn’t have a ‘value’ it gets wasted – if there is no monetary benefit from each litre of potable water they manage to deliver successfully to customers, then why bother to fix the leaking pipes, as they’re ‘losing nothing’ ? No incentive to improve.
Of course, a parallel argument could be applied to the routine NHS in the UK – because there is no direct and proportionate exchange of cash at the point of delivery, the ‘product’ is not correctly valued, either by the recipients or by its delivery agents. Start to charge for it and both sides of the deal might get just a bit smarter about how they use/abuse, or even improve, the thing.
- Moor Larkin
October 14, 2014 at 1:43 pm -
Aint that last bit the truth. I visited the local pharmacy that has been attached to the shiny new Medical Centre near me for the first time. It was in the evening so just me and them there. She went over to these wooden wall to ceiling shelves in one corner. They were either side of the space so I could only see the side facing me. She was rooting about on the other side. The side I could see was rammed full of those paper bags they put the fulfilled prescriptions in. Rammed. I was thinking to myself? It’s getting on for 7pm, this place will be closing anytime. Where have all the sick people who need all this medicine got to? She gave up, and said to her colleague, I can’t find anything (referring to me). The other one bished at her keyboard and said it must be there…. The first one got back on her steps. Oh yes, here it is…. there’s so much stuff here. That was my cue. “Sick people don’t really seem to need their prescriptions do they” . The one at the keyboard snorted. “You wouldn’t believe it. Every now and again we have to go through it all and chuck all the stuff away that’s been here a month… Luckily enough I never have to bother the NHS too much, but if fair made me feel sick I can telly you.
- John Richmond
October 14, 2014 at 10:57 pm -
Repeat prescriptions for those of us who need them will make up a fair proportion of those filled scripts.
- John Richmond
- Duncan Disorderly
October 14, 2014 at 2:09 pm -
“In the world of state supplies, if something doesn’t have a ‘value’ it gets wasted – if there is no monetary benefit from each litre of potable water they manage to deliver successfully to customers, then why bother to fix the leaking pipes, as they’re ‘losing nothing’ ? No incentive to improve.”
That seems a bit one dimensional. In my opinion, no money has been spent on the water supply and chickens came home to roost. It should have been fixed up long ago when there was money around, but it is too late now. Also, the protests seem bizarre given what people are being asked to pay for something useful. It looks like an issue of people calling the ‘whaaaaambulance’ because they are asked to pay money for something.
- Ed P
October 14, 2014 at 2:42 pm -
There are considerable costs involved with purification and pumping water. Compare the Irish 40% with Thames Water’s woeful leaks, losing perhaps 20% nowadays.
Thames have improved greatly in recent years (they’ve halved the losses) by replacing old cast-iron pipe with plastic ones. This cost a lot and was reflected on our bills.- Mudplugger
October 14, 2014 at 5:30 pm -
Having had the misfortune to taste Thames Water’s principal product on occasions, I’d reckon the more of that flat, over-medicated, barely-recycled sewage they manage to lose, the better for all concerned. Calling it water must be a damned close-run thing with the Trade Descriptions Act.
- The Jannie
October 14, 2014 at 6:29 pm -
On our very occasional visits to the nation’s armpit, bottled water is the first thing to be packed.
- Mudplugger
October 14, 2014 at 9:16 pm -
Not sure about the ‘armpit’ – I’m of the view that, should Britain ever need colonic irrigation, then the Thames Estuary is precisely where they’d insert the tube.
- Mudplugger
- The Jannie
- Mudplugger
- Ed P
- Moor Larkin
- Moor Larkin
October 14, 2014 at 12:45 pm -
“it would be easy to increase taxes to pay for the additional investment required”
it would be, but the landlady seems to be pointing out that the Oirish are now under the control of Others, and They have different ideas:
[quote]”Now that organisation so beloved of the left – the EU and the IMF – have insisted that the charge be equally apportioned.[unquote]
- Mudplugger
- Ms Mildred
October 14, 2014 at 12:41 pm -
We went over to a meter many years ago, after an invite from the water people. Recently I paid out nearly £100 for a 6 monthly bill. Bit higher than usual. We are not squeaky clean. Water is the stuff of life. Ireland probably has more of it than most countries. Better piping and filtering paid by for all, not just those in work, is an equality driven matter. Never mind that bloomin EU lefty lot. It is enforcement that gets up noses I supposes. Ireland feeling sorry for itself after the CELTIC TIGER phase is over and done with perhaps? Whose fault was a mishandling of that unrivalled opportunity to have reverse immigration and wisely used prosperity? The return of the wanderers into the claws of the tired tiger. I love the Irish, they are wonderful people, but have imploded into the blame game culture. Best water I ever tasted was on a lesser known Greek Island that got its weekly water offloaded from two boats. It was well water during a feast on a pistachio nut farm miles from anywhere. Imagine THAT Ireland and try to be happier…please.
- Joe Public
October 14, 2014 at 12:51 pm -
There are two issues:-
1. Delivering potable water.
2. Getting rid of the ‘used’ water that humans piss down the sewer (plus disposing of all the other water piped to the premises.). Oh, and disposing too, of rain-water run-off from the entire property.
Of course if the citizens really object to paying to have their H2O delivered, they could always buy stocks of Perrier (complete with trace Benzene) from their local Waitrose.
- Cloudberry
October 14, 2014 at 1:50 pm -
Water with bacteria and leaky pipes? Who wouldn’t want to pay extra!
- binao
October 14, 2014 at 3:18 pm -
Had a meter for years, and there’s no doubt it leads to less waste. I wouldn’t dream of watering a lawn.
I agree with the view that paying leads to respect for the product.
My eyes were opened in the ’80’s living in RSA, where water was scarce. All utility bills were monthly, so it was easy to keep tabs on unusual usage. I only had one real shocker bill; a small leak was the culprit. It was expensive because the deal was that exceeding the quite reasonable monthly allowance of water at standard rate meant the whole bill was doubled. Or something like that. - Wigner’s Friend
October 14, 2014 at 3:21 pm -
“If you don’t pay the water bill, they won’t cut you off – they will (or are threatening to, though I don’t see how this will work in blocks of flats) cut your water supply down to a ‘trickle’ – there won’t be enough pressure to power the dishwasher, washing machine, or jacuzzi that every self-respecting austerity hit household has these days. There will just be enough water to drink, cook and wash with – that you won’t be paying for.”
After 3 years of drought in Cyprus, the government tried to impose water rationing on the population. It worked on the expats, but all the locals had had enormous storage tanks installed which filled up during the “water” days and were more than sufficient to last through “no water” days. I don’t see too much difficulty fixing something similar to work on trickle feed. If they can frig electricity meters, why not this?
- Don Cox
October 14, 2014 at 4:26 pm -
The mistake they are making is telling people they are paying for the water.
It isn’t the water they are paying for, it’s the pipes.
- Demetrius
October 14, 2014 at 6:50 pm -
Forgive me if I am wrong, but I was always under the impression that Ireland often has rainy days. So where does all the water go off the roofs and properties etc.? Don Cox is quite right, it is not the water it all the infrastructure and organisation that goes into moving, cleaning, controlling and directing it.
- Engineer
October 14, 2014 at 7:42 pm -
Could they drink bottled Guinness instead?
- Schrodinger’s Dog
October 14, 2014 at 8:24 pm -
Anna,
You’re quite right: nothing is ever “free”. When I’m told something is free I regard it as an insult to my intelligence. Of course I’m paying, it’s just the cost isn’t made explicit, so I’m almost certainly paying over the odds.
Given that the Left is largely in bed with the Greens these days, I’m surprised they don’t approve of this proposal. As other commentators have mentioned, a metered water supply is a great encouragement to conserve it, thus benefiting the environment.
- gareth
October 14, 2014 at 9:04 pm -
I’m on metered water myself and am also rather of the view that metering is a good thing, however as I understand it (from headrambles.com – and he’s no leftey greeny either), this is seen as a) a new tax, b) a preparation to sell off a public asset & c) imposed by their EU masters and puppet government in Dublin. So I have some sympathy for their outrage.
- Seamus in Dublin
October 14, 2014 at 10:22 pm -
… is the correct answer.
It is the issue on which most the unrest of recent years has crystallised.
- Seamus in Dublin
- theyfearthehare
October 15, 2014 at 11:32 am -
The introduction of water meters did seem to have a positive impact on the social interaction between the residents on the street where I occasionally live in the UK. Those with meters, were inclined to strike up friendships with those without meters. Its now quite a regular sight to see those on meters connecting their hosepipes to external taps of their neighbours who pay a fixed fee.
As I’m rarely in the UK these days, pay per use makes perfect sense, but the goodwill generated by the supply of free water for the washing of cars and watering of lawns and gardens is worth every penny.
- Mudplugger
October 15, 2014 at 12:00 pm -
There’s a further nuance on that theme – the pre-meter system being based on the ancient Rateable Value of the property.
Where neighbouring properties retain widely-different old RVs, it makes sense for the high-value properties to get a meter, then connect all their big-volume usage via hosepipes to their friendly, lower-RV, neighbour, who still pays modestly under the old system, particularly when that property had never been re-rated to account for its massive extensions. (I’d better not include my address in case our local water company is watching !)
- Mudplugger
- Grandad
October 15, 2014 at 3:17 pm -
I’m coming a little late to the party, but I thought I would pen my thoughts on this. As my thoughts were somewhat long, I put them in my own hostelry rather than clutter up this esteemed establishment.
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