Irish Water staff get €5k bonuses as crisis deepens

April 9, 2017

- All 675 workers given 'performance-related payment'

- 11 spouses of executives also have free health insurance

- FF threatens to block election of a new FG Taoiseach

Protest: March against water charges crosses the Matt Talbot Bridge in Dublin yesterday. Photo : Colin O'Riordan

The water charges controversy dramatically escalated on two fronts yesterday as Fianna Fail threatened to block the election of a new Fine Gael Taoiseach, and new details emerged of a still-thriving bonus culture at Irish Water.

In an email to Fianna Fail TDs and senators yesterday, the party leadership warned it would not facilitate the election of a new Fine Gael Taoiseach unless the "confidence and supply" deal between both parties was honoured on water charges.

This amounts to the most overt pressure yet on Fine Gael to facilitate legislation to implement the Oireachtas water committee's recommendations on water charges. Fine Gael is now expected to increase legal pressure to torpedo the report at committee stage this week.

The dramatic escalation in the political row between both parties - in effect, a Fianna Fail threat to bring down the Government with Enda Kenny possibly still Fine Gael leader - comes as this newspaper also reveals details of lucrative bonuses paid out to Irish Water staff as recently as last month.

Irish Water suspended the bonus scheme in late 2014, following a public backlash.

But now payments over and above salary have been made to each staff member and gold-plated health insurance packages have been made available to executives and their spouses.

Car allowances and specially funded fitness instructors are also among the perks enjoyed at Irish Water.

Today's revelations are likely to reignite public disquiet at Irish Water and fuel opposition to water charges.

The bonus details emerged under the Freedom of Information Act as tensions between Fine Gael and Fianna Fail have ratcheted up to an unprecedented level.

Fianna Fail's new position, a threat to oppose the election of a new Fine Gael Taoiseach, comes as the Sunday Independent reveals that just last month all 675 staff at Irish Water each received a bonus payment of almost €5,000 on average, or €3.2m in total.

On top of that, 11 senior executives each received blue chip health insurance cover for themselves and their spouses, worth more than an additional €5,000 a year.

It has also emerged that €22,328 has been spent on providing specialist fitness lessons for staff who avail of an in-house gym at Irish Water. Gym classes are said to be mandatory to comply with "health and safety regulations".

Overall, 32 Irish Water staff earn more than €100,000. A new company car, worth €41,998, was also purchased last year for the company's managing director Jerry Grant, and eight members of the senior management team also receive an annual car allowance of €10,500.

The bonus culture at Irish Water still exists even though water charges have been suspended and are on the verge of abolition.

Article abridged see full article by Mark O'Regan and Jody Corcoran: Independent.ie Apr 9 2017

We've been fleeced on water and those responsible will walk away

December 13, 2016

by Colette Browne

Water charge protesters won, and now our inept politicians will stick us with the massive bill

There should be just one item on the agenda of the Oireachtas Committee into water charges when it meets for the first time today - how to emerge from the Irish Water debacle with the least cost to the Exchequer

It is becoming increasing clear that the overriding concern of politicians responsible for the creation of our aborted water charges regime is how to extricate themselves from the fiasco with their dignity left intact. The danger is that, in the unseemly rush to find a solution that offers an escape route, public interest will be sacrificed on the altar of whatever is politically expedient.

According to a report in a national newspaper yesterday, it is expected that Irish Water will have cost the State more than €2bn by the end of this year. This figure does not include the €570m that was spent installing water meters or loan facilities that have been underwritten by the State.

Among the costs to date have been the €81,000 in legal fees that were spent every week in the first year when Irish Water was being set up, €650,000 on an advertising campaign, €340,000 on external PR companies and €50m on a contract for call-centre staff. Meanwhile, among the more eye-catching expenses that have been spent since charges were abandoned in May are €774,848 on "efforts to improve customer service" and €775,141 on "business change support services".

It is a national scandal that so much money has been expended on a public utility whose business model is constantly in flux. So far, the pricing structure has changed twice in quick succession before being suspended; social protection grants and tax rebates have been introduced before being quietly abandoned and a short-lived conservation grant cost €110m plus €6m to administer.

When the cost of Freedom of Information requests are being assessed, the relevant department calculates how much time civil servants will spend collating information in order to estimate the price for journalists. Perhaps someone in Government Buildings could apply this formula to Irish Water and estimate how much the endless hours civil servants have devoted to this disaster have cost us in lost productivity.

Setting up an enormous public utility, and then unilaterally changing its business model every couple of months, is bad enough, but the most egregious waste of money could be the cost of the water meters.

To date, around €550m has been splurged on water meters, which could end up rotting in the ground. It is a measure of the through-the-looking-glass nature of the recently published expert report on water charges that the cost of abandoning the water-metering scheme didn't seem to feature in its calculations.

In the event, the report suggested that a charge should apply only for those who use excessive amounts of water, but then bizarrely refused to recommend that the water-metering scheme should be continued, leaving one to wonder how exactly levels of waste could possibly be calculated.

Fianna Fáil was rightly pilloried when it embarked on its ill-fated e-voting machine omnishambles, which cost the State in excess of €50m. However, that figure pales into insignificance when compared to the €550m that could be flushed away on water meters.

To put the figure in context, the cost of cystic fibrosis medication, Orkambi, has been estimated at €400m over five years, but we have been repeatedly told that the State cannot afford to provide it.

How can the Government so blithely assure us that life-saving medication for CF patients is not affordable, while at the same time splurging hundreds of millions on a water-metering programme that could soon be abandoned?

Taoiseach Enda Kenny, in the Dáil last week, said drug company Vertex was "ripping off the taxpayer" by charging an "excessive" amount for the life-saving drug.

However, when it comes to ripping off taxpayers, drug companies are in the ha'penny place as long as we have politicians who pump masses of public money into ill-conceived pet projects and then just walk away after sticking citizens with the bill.

The drug companies may fleece us, but at least we get something useful in return. What will we have to show for the billions that have been frittered away on Irish Water?

We certainly won't have a robust and reliable water infrastructure, if the current level of investment is anything to go by. The inconvenient truth is that Fianna Fáil, between 2007 and 2011, spent around twice as much on water infrastructure as the current discredited regime.

If politicians think the anger over Irish Water has died down, they are in for a rude awakening. If anything, the problem for them is now worse because they also have the rage of the formerly compliant people who paid their bills, and understandably want a refund, to grapple with.

Given there have been innumerable reports commissioned by any number of experts into Irish Water, can the politicians perhaps commission one more? Ask some experts in good governance to review politicians' own miserable performance when it comes to water charges and then come up with some kind of repayment plan to reimburse the Exchequer for any waste that can be attributed to their ineptitude.

Given the kind of lump-sum payments and pensions that senior politicians can expect to enjoy when they retire from office, some kind of dent could surely be made in the overall figure.

Source: Irish Independent Dec 13 2016

"Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"

October 24, 2016

Our apology to Gene Kerrigan for taking this extract from his article 'The tax laws are now a la carte, for some' in last Sunday's Irish Independent. However, it is a good analogy for what the State is prepare to do, to abuse a 17 year old Irish student in pursuit of underlying agendas. It has dragged a youth through the judicial system, a jury less court and convicted him with 'false imprisonment'. It was the first case in a series of cases against the Jobstown protesters.

There's been a bit of a war going on, between the shameless bastards and the rest of us. Not an all-out conflict, just guerrilla actions here and there.

In recent days we've seen groups of organised labour attempting to win back some of that which was taken from them over the past eight years.

Bus drivers, teachers and gardai used limited industrial action to try to retake ground conceded following the bailout of bankers and builders.

Another area of conflict has been the Irish Water scandal. This erupted when Fine Gael, Fianna Fail and Labour sought to produce a revenue stream from the water supply, which could then be privatised.

This sneaky and always-denied strategy was stymied by a grassroots revolt, people from all around the country who knew they were being scalped.

One of the consequences of this conflict popped up in the courts on Thursday, when a juvenile who took part in a protest against Minister Joan Burton was found guilty of "false imprisonment".

I read Independent.ie's report of the judge's summing up of the prosecution evidence. Sorry, M'Lord - I don't see the imprisonment, false or otherwise, but no doubt you are wise and good.

The civil disobedience tactic of the sit-down protest has been well-chronicled, from Gandhi through to Martin Luther King, in civil rights and labour struggles. An Irish court has now reconstituted this act as "false imprisonment". The credentials of the juvenile involved were given to the court and he seems uncommonly public-spirited, usefully engaged with his community. He's had the full weight of State power dumped on him over the past two years.

Some day someone will write an academic study of the precise steps taken by the State to bring all its forces to bear on what seems to have been the mild actions of a 15-year old.

For now, we can only quote the conservative journalist William Rees-Mogg, in turn quoting Alexander Pope. Rees-Mogg used Pope's phrase when commenting on the UK State's overbearing effort to jail Mick Jagger: "Who breaks a butterfly upon a wheel?"

The late Judge Adrian Hardiman, who died suddenly seven months ago, was often critical of journalists, and some of us returned the favour. But from his early days as a lawyer he had a genuine concern about the tension between the power of the State and the rights of the individual. What a pity that, should the "false imprisonment" appeal reach the Supreme Court, we won't hear his views on this most unusual case.

While labour and community groups have had mixed fortunes in the conflict, it's widely understood that the rich are enjoying some sweet victories.

source: Irish Independent, Oct 23, 2016