Irish Water discards guidance on cast iron meter housing

Utility says department’s guidelines ‘not binding’ for them and intended for builders

Workers install water meters in houses in the Fortlawn Estate near Blanchardstown, west Dublin. File photograph: Colin Keegan/Collins Dublin

Irish Water has acknowledged installing plastic water meter boxes in place of cast iron boxes which are specified for use in driveways where cars may park on the lids of the meter housing.

The utility said it chose to disregard the Department of Environment guidance on water meter housing which specified a typically cast iron water meter box in places where a heavy load such as a car might park on the meter housing.

Head of asset management at Irish Water Jerry Grant told TDs and Senators 645,000 water meters had been installed since the current programme began and just 14 had been reported broken. In fact, he said, just 500 of the installed boxes were the specified ’grade B’, typically cast iron, boxes.

The overwhelming majority were ’grade C’ boxes made of plastic, which he said were perfectly safe and sturdy.

Mr Grant said the Department of Environment guidance was intended for builders and local authorities and was “not binding on Irish Water”.

He said tests carried out by the contractors employed by Irish Water had shown that the plastic boxes more than met the strength required to withstand the weight of a car.

He told the politicians at a meeting of the Joint Committee on Public Service Oversight and Petitions that a particular test was carried out in which a stone was placed on a plastic lid and a vehicle manoeuvred so that its wheel was on top of the stone. Mr Grant said the plastic lid did not crack but the test had to be abandoned for fear that the vehicle’s tyre “would explode”.

A Department of Environment spokesman confirmed that the specification did not carry the force of law, and was provided for guidance only.

Mr Grant said a company such as Irish Water with strong engineering capability could carry out its own analysis and tests and chose a preferred option other then that which was specified in guidelines.

However, Michael Healy-Rae TD produced two examples of the meter housing, a cast iron type B, and a plastic type C.

Plain to see

He said it was plain to see that that type B was stronger than type C. The cast iron boxes would not break, and it was equally plain to see the plastic boxes would break, he said.

Mr Healy-Rae also said it was the case that the radio signal which allowed the meters to be read from a passing van, could not penetrate the cast iron and he suggested this was a factor in Irish Water’s thinking.

Mr Healy-Rae TD also took issue with Irish Water’s contention that just 14 meter boxes had been reported broken, and many of these had related to issues of workmanship on installation. “Do you really believe that yourselves,” he asked.

Irish Water said the signal would pass through a cast iron cover, “the question would be what distance could the signal travel”.

Noel Harrington TD complained the plastic boxes and covers were made in Wales while a supplier of cast iron products from Co Offaly was prevented from securing the business.

At this point chairman of the committee Pádraig MacLochlainn TD ruled that all reference to the tendering for the meter boxes was out of order, as a legal case was being taken in relation to such matters. “It is subject to a court process,” he said.

Mr MacLochlainn said it was questionable that local authorities would have been expected to comply with guidance from the Department of Environment, but that Irish Water could be exempt.

He said members could submit more questions to Irish Water which the utility would consider over the course of the next week, reverting to the committee with answers.

Original Article Irish Times Wed 23 Sept, 2015

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Irish Water was slain by Middle Ireland, not Paul Murphy

Article by Shane Ross

Shane Ross Independent TD

Did you pay your water charges? You did. You mug. Not to worry, you will get your money back.

Every water disaster has an upside. Here is one election promise they will not tell you about. It will not feature in the Budget. It will not appear in any party's manifesto but it is being whispered in the corridors of Leinster House. It will have all-party agreement. It will put money back into the pockets of the battered, law-abiding middle class.

You did not pay? You are carefree, cavalier and cunning. You know there is safety in numbers. The Irish Government is hardly poised to prosecute half its electorate just before an election. The battle is over. Civil disobedience has triumphed.

Some of those who have already paid up are looking ruefully at their respectable, middle-class neighbours. The neighbours - with two cars in the driveway and kids at private schools - are not paying their water charges. They see no point. They justify their refusal by citing the woes of Irish Water. They loathe the bonus culture, the waste, the daily litany of disasters dripping out of the Talbot Street headquarters. They deeply dislike Paul Murphy TD, his ilk and his antics, but they see a refusal to pay water charges as a gesture of defiance, a riposte to the constant crucifixions of the coping classes. They know they will never see the inside of a courtroom.

Others have even registered with Irish Water, but have not paid up. Non-payers, they are still snatching a quick €100 profit, a social welfare giveaway dressed up as a "conservation" grant - although they have conserved nothing. They will blow the gift from the State on a bottle of vintage wine or a joint of sirloin beef.

Recently some of those ducking the bills were beginning to wobble, until last week when the Labour Relations Commission (LRC) bolstered their resistance. Ireland's industrial relations troubleshooter made a monkey of itself. It restored bonuses to Irish Water staff. A few months ago, the bonuses were stopped after a public outcry. Last week, 29 of the top brass at Irish Water recouped €3,000 a year, while lower-grade staff received less. The LRC decision gave cover to the Government, to Irish Water itself, to the trade unions and to all those seeking a pretext for refusing to pay the charges.

The die was cast after the LRC decision. The non-compliant bourgeoisie no longer needed an excuse to revolt. Official Ireland, in the form of the LRC, had sponsored a deal accepting the hated bonus culture. Irish Water's days are numbered, slain not by Paul Murphy and his band, but by a middle-class rebellion. At the end of June, 810,000 households had refused to pay. The Government has been defeated. The end will come either through the jackboot or the white flag. It is Hobson's choice. All that remains is a decent funeral for water charges.

The Government will leave the surrender until after the election, stoutly maintaining the status quo until then. The debts of the defaulters will be forgiven by a new regime, simply because the money cannot be collected. Those who have paid will have to receive their money back. Those who have taken a "conservation grant" will never have to return their ill-gotten gains. The fiasco of Irish Water has many months to run.

What in the name of God is happening in the Irish madhouse? A state monopoly, a dysfunctional quango, has accepted a proposal from a state agency (the LRC), an unreformed quango, to restore 'performance' bonuses of €3,000 to its top staff. Backdated, to boot.

Today's Irish Water is bad enough but the LRC itself is a reminder of unhappier times. It is as deep rooted in the Irish establishment as the other state agencies. It is a legacy of the days of social partnership. It is a quango that is about to be merged with two other quangos, the National Employment Rights Authority (NERA) and the Equality Tribunal. It will morph into a monster.

The LRC's five-person board is past its sell-by date. The chair is occupied by Breege O'Donoghue, a long-standing political nominee. The remaining directors are nominated by either the bearded brethren or, even worse, by the impostors from the Irish Business and Employers Confederation (IBEC). The two most conservative forces in Ireland (IBEC and ICTU) are in the saddle at the LRC. Breege has been a director since 2003. ICTU nominee Peter McLoone was selected 15 years ago, as was IBEC'S social partnership relic, Brendan McGinty.

The two other nominees, ICTU's Fergus Whelan and IBEC's John Hennessy, have served a mere six years.

Social partnership quangos still flourish behind the parapet. Each LRC director pockets nearly €12,000 a year while chairperson Breege receives over twenty grand. Breege must have netted €250,000 over the years for this gentle gig.

Peter McLoone, who enjoyed the State's largesse as a director of FAS in its more extravagant days, has been forced to settle for less than €180,000. Refreshing the board is an unknown concept for this den of dinosaurs.

And the LRC is hardly a champion of corporate governance. The majority of its board has served far beyond the generally acceptable period. An arbiter over others, it is chronically late - for a second year - in producing its 2014 annual report. It was meant to be lodged in the Oireachtas Library before June 30.

We are waiting. Some of the information it eventually provides will be nearly two years out-of-date when it is released.

In Ireland, the sisterhood of quangos does not need to obey the rules.

Yet we are supposed to trust the LRC's judgments on such delicate matters as bonuses to employees of Ireland's latest industrial lunatic asylum.

The unions, some of whose members are beneficiaries of the bonuses, have bought into the deal.

The LRC is riddled with the politics of social partnership.

Below board level it employs 12 favoured outsiders as so-called Rights Commissioners on a basic €408 a day (over €100,000 a year annualised). Rights Commissioners are politically appointed following a recommendation from the social partners. Familiar names on the panel are veterans of the social partnership era. No interviews for these juicy posts were ever held. The department has promised that this will change!

Last week, when I asked the LRC for a biography of its board members, a senior employee was puzzled. They had nothing on file. Breege and Peter and Fergus and John and Brendan might as well be women from Mars or men from the moon.

Is this the body that we want sorting out our industrial relations spats? Perhaps it was technically right in its stance on Irish Water bonuses, but do we desire a board of social partnership fossils setting the standards for rows revolving around bonuses agreed behind closed doors?

Sometimes it is more appropriate to focus the spotlight on the judge rather than the protagonists in a dispute. All the vested interests in this latest Irish Water controversy are off the hook. Instead, we now need a victim impact statement on behalf of the Irish people.

Next month the LRC's merger with two other quangos will create a superquango called the Workplace Relations Commission.

It will boast a brand new board. Expect to see all the usual suspects re-appearing.

Water charges are doomed. No government can enforce payment of hundreds of thousands of outstanding bills. They will tough it out until the polls have closed. A few weeks later a "review" will grant an amnesty to those who have refused to pay. A little footnote in the press release will reveal that the mugs who ponied up for their water charges will receive a cheque in the post.

Article: Irish Independent Sept 20, 2015
             Fliuch.org

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Up to 2000 people attend protest over Jobstown charges

Attempts to ‘intimidate’ or ‘silence’ anti-water charges movement will not work, crowd told

Paul Murphy greeting a supporter at a protest over the policing of the anti-water charges movement at the Central Bank in Dublin on Saturday. Photograph: Dara Mac Dónaill / The Irish Times

Attempts to “intimidate”, “silence” or “marginalise” the anti-water charges movement with arrests and court summonses will not work, up to 2,000 protestors in Dublin were told on Saturday.

Paul Murphy TD (Socialist Party) is one of over 20 people facing charges related to an incident last November in which the Tánaiste Joan Burton, was trapped in her car for two hours. The incident occurred during an anti-water charges protest in the Jobstown area of west Tallaght.

Mr Murphy told protestors that political policing of working class movements was “not the exception but the rule” and that the summonses, issued to teenagers and adults last week, showed the extent to which political policing was now “laid bare”.

Joan Collins TD facing charges over April protest

He pointed also to the charging this week of 13 people in the Crumlin area for obstructing the installation of water meters, among them Joan Collins TD (United Left); to the Garda decision this month to refuse the Anti-Austerity Alliance a permit to fundraise in the Jobstown area; to the dawn arrests of anti-water charges campaigners in February, and, to the leaking to the media of Garda plans to charge those involved in the Jobstown incident.

The majority are charged with false imprisonment, with some also facing public disorder and criminal damage charges. Those teenagers charged are due to appear at the children’s court on October 29th with the others due in the circuit court on November 2nd.

Saturday’s protest, called on Monday, was led by seven people carrying a wide banner saying “Support the Jobstown 23. Drop the charges”.

Up to 2,000 people marched the two kilometres from the Central Bank to the Criminal Courts of Justice, demonstrating about what they described as political policing of the anti-water charges movement.

At a rally outside the Central Bank, one of those facing charges, Scott Masterson, said Ms Burton had presided over cuts to public services and the implementation of austerity which had harshly affected working class communities, including Jobstown.

“I’m calling for criminal charges to be brought for the false imprisonment of 376,000 people held in the prison of poverty. I’m calling for charges to be brought against those who falsely imprison 216,000 children in poverty. I’m calling for charges against those who cause tens of thousands of workers to remain trapped in low-paid, insecure work and I’d like to call for charges for the false imprisonment of hundreds of asylum seekers in direct provision.”

Ruth Coppinger, TD, said the Anti-Austerity Alliance, of which she is a member, had been “singled out for attack” by the political and legal systems.

“Legislation is being used to attack the elected representatives of the working class. We fully intend to challenge this all the way in the courts,” she said.

Carrying placards and banners, with such slogans as, ‘Jobstown Innocent, Burton Guilty’, ‘Stop political policing now’ and ‘Water is a human right’ the protestors chanted, “One, two, three, four, Stop the banging on the door. Two, four, six, eight, protect the right to demonstrate” and “Burton in your ivory tower, this is called people power”.

There was a low-key Garda presence on the ground, while the Garda helicopter flew overhead during much of the march along the quays.

At the courts building, further speakers included Fiona Byrne from Jobstown, Seán Crowe, TD (Sinn Féin), Clare Daly TD (Independent) and Mr Murphy.

John Lyons, People Before Profit Dublin city councillor, Des Fagan of the Civil and Public Services Union and Joan Collins TD spoke at the Central Bank.

Several speakers referred to the homelessness crisis, to which they said Ms Burton had contributed by refusing to increase rent supplement, and also to her opening of a new food bank in Dublin during the week.

Mr Murphy said the problem in Ireland was not civil disobedience, but civil obedience. However, he said, “the majority of people in this country are quietly but effectively engaging in... civil disobedience” by not paying water charges.

He called for a strong show “of political solidarity” at the courts on October 29th and November 2nd, before quoting James Connolly.

“If you strike at, imprison or kill us, out of our prisons or our graves we will still evoke a spirit that will thwart you and may happ, raise a force that will destroy you. We defy you. Do your worst,” he said to loud cheers and applause.

Article Irish Times Sept 19, 2016

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