Water charges

_Kaiser_ · 15-01-2014 9:53pm

Mr.Micro wrote: »

I even heard bonuses mentioned on the lunchtime news. It has not even got going yet and bonuses already in the offing. Unbelievable.

Sure why wouldn't there be - they've managed to work it so that if you don't use enough of their product they can hike the charges, and if you don't use it at all you'll STILL have to pay

It's win-win for them. For the rest it's another tax hike

randomperson12 · 15-01-2014 10:07pm

i noticed that the goverment are very busy with this water stuff and still havent arested anglo irish bank ppl thats what the abortion and the g.y marrige thing where set up for ..... no offense to those ppl..... but thats what there trying to avoid there getting paid by the like of fiskgerald big money to shut up about locking them up they should be made worked in labour on the roads filling potholes and farm relief during storms

emo72 · 15-01-2014 10:40pm

A "spring rising" for the western world? Anyone? has to start somewhere:pac:

Mr.Micro · 15-01-2014 11:00pm

Kaiser2000 wrote: »

Sure why wouldn't there be - they've managed to work it so that if you don't use enough of their product they can hike the charges, and if you don't use it at all you'll STILL have to pay

It's win-win for them. For the rest it's another tax hike

Yes indeed, it looks like a sneaky way of raising money. I read in the Indo piece, posted in my other post, that the local authorities will be running their own supplies for 10 years or so, until the water authority takes over. So now, if I have got it right, we have another quango to pay salaries to, as well as all the staff, bonuses etc, yet the local authorities will still be doing the water and getting paid by local government? Another stroke by Hogan?

Sierra Oscar · 15-01-2014 11:52pm

The bonuses are alive and well in Irish Water despite the latest controversy - Irish Water defends bonus scheme for staff

One really does have to question if someone in a senior position deserves a bonus payment at the moment when the company has to rely hugely on external 'consultants' to get the job done.

raymon · 16-01-2014 12:07am

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

The bonuses are alive and well in Irish Water despite the latest controversy - Irish Water defends bonus scheme for staff

One really does have to question if someone in a senior position deserves a bonus payment at the moment when the company has to rely hugely on external 'consultants' to get the job done.

For once I agree with you . These bonuses are outrageous. The government needs to clamp down on overpaid employees with bloated pensions and bonuses before we have another ESB.

Sierra Oscar · 16-01-2014 12:09am

raymon wrote: »

For once I agree with you . These bonuses are outrageous. The government needs to clamp down on overpaid employees with bloated pensions and bonuses before we have another ESB.

I would have thought that management would have waited until the company is actually up and running before they started trying to dish out the bonuses.

It shouldn't be happening anyway, but the optics are terrible regardless.

_Kaiser_ · 16-01-2014 9:44am

Y'know something... as bad as FF messed things up, FG are actually worse in my opinion - and I'm no fan of either party.

FF ironically delivered on what they promised.. that the party would continue as long as it could. FG promised change, reform and transparency.. and then immediately went back on all of that the minute they got into power bleating about how they inherited the mess or "the EU/Troika/ECB made us do it!" at every turn.

FF may have signed us up to economic slavery, but FG sealed the deal.. also in the dead of night while having a piss-up.

This Irish Water debacle is merely the latest example in a long line of corruption, incompetence, and jobs for the boys from Irish governments. We really shouldn't be surprised at what's coming out about the costs/bonuses etc over the last few days.

Are we EVER going to see a REAL alternative in this country??

creedp · 16-01-2014 11:10am

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

I would have thought that management would have waited until the company is actually up and running before they started trying to dish out the bonuses.

It shouldn't be happening anyway, but the optics are terrible regardless.

Its kind of amusing to hear the CEO of a company that hasn't got off the ground yet talking about a pay freeze being in place for its staff! The hypocricy of this from the Govt's perspective is also mind numbing. They cut PS wages and other terms and conditions because they could .. they didn't touch semi-state wages bacause of existing contractual entitlements (blame FF!). However, this Govt was responsible for establishing IW .. presumably they insisted that the new contractual entitlements for pay and other terms and conditions were consistent with Govt pay policy? From the IW debacle I can only assume the current Govt support the payment of significant bonuses for [semi-state] public sector workers.

jmayo · 16-01-2014 11:35am

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

I would have thought that management would have waited until the company is actually up and running before they started trying to dish out the bonuses.

For once I totally agree with you.
The whole idea of a bonus shoudl be that they are earned for work achieved.
So far Irish Water has just cost money and yet they are going to award themselves a bonus.

Did the founders of Google award themselves and their first employees a bonus before they even had their website up and running ?
Somehow I doubt it.

Sierra Oscar wrote: »

It shouldn't be happening anyway, but the optics are terrible regardless.

It should not be happening period, optics be dammed.

hogan has a lot to answer for and the fact as admitted by one of the heads of his department that he was not told about spending, just illustrates how our civil service is still as bad as the one where the dept of finance didn't spot the Irish banks playing silly buggers with their loan books.

I am beginning to dispair that the Irish Water is turning into another HSE. :mad:

dublinman1990 · 16-01-2014 12:45pm

I don't see in the minds of Irish People that IW should be a credible company in the future of this country. It will be a company that is regarded as corrupt, that is self-serving to it's own employees (regardless of the public mood saying no to this every single time) and that is unaccountable to the Irish Government including the committees.

Staff getting paid bonuses IMO should be the last straw for this company to go to hell and suffer for their deadly sins. Yet Phil Hogan says no to that, with the debacle of the HC and LPT going awry, he doesn't care of any real reform as he loves the temptation of us getting screwed in our finances every time we try to live our lives on this island.

It should be his remit to go and resign if he wants to along the rest of IW and just let the councils do the work themselves. I am fine with that.

After that, FG and Labour should go for an election and see how they like it for themselves.

Gotham · 16-01-2014 5:40pm

So I'm a bit confused on the water charges thing.

Before all of this, I presume our taxes paid for water, how else would it be funded?
Now I don't mind paying tax on water, but now it's a fee and we get directly billed for it (instead of it being taken out of our wages).
So, are we going to charged the fee AND taxed? Because I don't ever expect to see my taxes going down on my payslip...

I've heard someone complain that this is basically double taxation, so is it?

jmayo · 16-01-2014 6:12pm

The problem in this country was that in 1977 a fianna fail government led by jack lynch bought an election by promising the removal of residential rates and motor tax.
And what is worse he made good on his promises.
Motor tax was bought back, but until the household charge there hasn't really been any residential charges like rates.

That meant that local government were more screwed and since then commerical rates and central government have been funding local councils.

And a fair few people reckon that the lack of residential rates was a contributory factor to our property bubble some 30 years later.

A lot of other countries have had property taxes and water charges, etc but we as a people have always been prone to the idea that your income taxes and indirect taxes pay for all these services as well as policing, health, education and social welfare.

BTW the 1977 fianna fail election win saw the first time election of such luminaries as bertie ahern, padraig flynn, liam lawlor and charlie mccreevy.
That was indeed a sad day for this state.

For Reals · 16-01-2014 7:06pm

Sadly, I've seen many posts from people who believe we've been getting 'free' water all these years and the new water charges will not be a double tax, basically paying for what we should have been paying for all along.

The truth is we've not had a water charge in name for years. The money always had to come from somewhere.

In my view the water tax will obviously be a double tax, unless, (and I can't see how) they can deduct any charges previously allocated to water supply from borrowings, motor tax or where ever they've been taking it.

Honestly with all the hype, bluster and bull is it insane to ask why any new charges brought in can't simply go to local Councils so they can improve upon the job they are familiar with and they've been doing for generations rather than starting from scratch with this Irish Water bollocksology? My only answer is they are setting the whole system up for sale down the road.

emo72 · 16-01-2014 9:30pm

For Reals wrote: »

Sadly, I've seen many posts from people who believe we've been getting 'free' water all these years and the new water charges will not be a double tax, basically paying for what we should have been paying for all along.

The truth is we've not had a water charge in name for years. The money always had to come from somewhere.

In my view the water tax will obviously be a double tax, unless, (and I can't see how) they can deduct any charges previously allocated to water supply from borrowings, motor tax or where ever they've been taking it.

Honestly with all the hype, bluster and bull is it insane to ask why any new charges brought in can't simply go to local Councils so they can improve upon the job they are familiar with and they've been doing for generations rather than starting from scratch with this Irish Water bollocksology? My only answer is they are setting the whole system up for sale down the road.

thats totally for real. we could have saved billions by not setting this up, and leaving it to the councils. now, some people will argue with us that its not going to be privatised. that doesnt make sense. the imf wanted it done this way so its a nice convenient lump sum (my favorite term today:() for them to take from us in the future.

remember its not their money they're spending, its ours, and they dont give a crap about it because its perceived as infinite.

randomperson12 · 16-01-2014 9:58pm

if you have money get a well dug your own water supply and you control it not the goverment although the water is good from the council treatment areas in some places i cant get it..... plus people are paying too much tax for every thing plus vat

RandomName2 · 16-01-2014 10:12pm

jmayo wrote: »

The problem in this country was that in 1977 a fianna fail government led by jack lynch bought an election by promising the removal of residential rates and motor tax.
And what is worse he made good on his promises.
Motor tax was bought back, but until the household charge there hasn't really been any residential charges like rates.

So they need domestic rates AND water rates as well?

jmayo wrote: »

That meant that local government were more screwed and since then commerical rates and central government have been funding local councils.

Commercial rates have been fairly punishing alright. I don't see them coming down any time soon, mind you.

jmayo wrote: »

And a fair few people reckon that the lack of residential rates was a contributory factor to our property bubble some 30 years later.

That and other measures designed to drive the bubble, like tax dispensations in property sector, lax lending rules (or adherence to), etc.

jmayo wrote: »

A lot of other countries have had property taxes and water charges, etc but we as a people have always been prone to the idea that your income taxes and indirect taxes pay for all these services as well as policing, health, education and social welfare.

Well they did up until 2008. Of course, the economy was over-reliant on tax generated through property development and sale, but still.

jmayo wrote: »

BTW the 1977 fianna fail election win saw the first time election of such luminaries as bertie ahern, padraig flynn, liam lawlor and charlie mccreevy.
That was indeed a sad day for this state.

So in 1977, Fianna Fail making a promise to the electorate, keeping that promise, and cutting taxes, was the epoch of bad politics in the state?

raymon · 16-01-2014 10:40pm

Randomname and Randomperson ...... Are you guys related ?

randomperson12 · 16-01-2014 10:53pm

theres alot of randoms around but ive seen about three of them on fouroms

Cookie_Monster · 16-01-2014 11:14pm

randomperson12 wrote: »

if you have money get a well dug your own water supply and you control it not the goverment although the water is good from the council treatment areas in some places i cant get it..... plus people are paying too much tax for every thing plus vat

or simply collect it from the roof and store it - it's not like it doesn't rain a lot.
of course there is still the issue of waste water but I guess the water metres can't cope with measuring out as well as in?

RandomName2 · 16-01-2014 11:43pm

raymon wrote: »

Randomname and Randomperson ...... Are you guys related ?

10 times removed

donegal__road · 17-01-2014 12:03pm

The real Irish Water scandal is the announcement that water charges will be increased if people are not using as much as expected.

Water metering's initial purpose was for environmental purposes according to the E.U. Meters were meant to encourage people to be more careful with their usage. We can see now clearly that it is instead focused on revenues.

jmayo · 17-01-2014 12:13pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

So they need domestic rates AND water rates as well?

Well water rates should pay for water.
Why should someone who isn't get any public funded water supply pay for it with their domestic rates would be my question.
Pay for what you use would be my motto.
Granted with that in mind the supply should be usable and guaranteed and the money raised would be earmarked for improvement of the water system and not into the general kity of government.

RandomName2 wrote: »

That and other measures designed to drive the bubble, like tax dispensations in property sector, lax lending rules (or adherence to), etc.

I did say it was a contributory factor and not the only or major one.

RandomName2 wrote: »

So in 1977, Fianna Fail making a promise to the electorate, keeping that promise, and cutting taxes, was the epoch of bad politics in the state?

That era was the begining of our eventual entry into bailout.
That era resulted in one of the most dodgy characters ever in Irish politics being rehabilated after his arms trial and his eventual rise to both leadership of fianna fail and leader of this country.
After that the dodgy types and chancers got promoted.

Ever heard the adage about the trouble with political manifestos is when they are implemented.

To me good government is not caving into eveything that the public and vested interests want.
Good politics is looking at the longer term, but sadly the vast majority of democratically elected politicans only care about the next election.
It is like caving in to a child in the supermarket or in a toyshop and allowing them have everything they want.

RandomName2 · 17-01-2014 4:47pm

jmayo wrote: »

Well water rates should pay for water.
Why should someone who isn't get any public funded water supply pay for it with their domestic rates would be my question.

Actually, tbh, I agree with you. However, that isn't what the point of the water charges are, no more than domestic rates were to pay for services local to the person who is paying such rates.

jmayo wrote: »

That era was the begining of our eventual entry into bailout.
That era resulted in one of the most dodgy characters ever in Irish politics being rehabilated after his arms trial and his eventual rise to both leadership of fianna fail and leader of this country.
After that the dodgy types and chancers got promoted.

30 years is a fairly broad brush in all fairness. You could equally say that it started with Lemass because that was where Haughey got a shoe-in.

jmayo wrote: »

Ever heard the adage about the trouble with political manifestos is when they are implemented.

To me good government is not caving into eveything that the public and vested interests want. [...]

It is like caving in to a child in the supermarket or in a toyshop and allowing them have everything they want.

I've heard this analogy before - I can't honesty think of any more irksome. Thinking that more power should be vested in civil servants not bound by their contractual obligations or public opinion would be akin to... I dunno... squandering €60 million on consultants fees, or telling silly members of the public who were pessimistic about the property bubble to go kill themselves.

donegal__road wrote: »

The real Irish Water scandal is the announcement that water charges will be increased if people are not using as much as expected.

Water metering's initial purpose was for environmental purposes according to the E.U. Meters were meant to encourage people to be more careful with their usage. We can see now clearly that it is instead focused on revenues.

Could someone explain to me how using a renewable resource damages the environment? Better cut back on the use of wind and solar power too!

walshb · 17-01-2014 5:31pm

What's the big deal with this 50 milion? 12 million thrown to rebuild Syria recently.

Phoebas · 18-01-2014 7:18pm

donegal__road wrote: »

The real Irish Water scandal is the announcement that water charges will be increased if people are not using as much as expected.

No such announcement was made.

raymon · 18-01-2014 8:42pm

Phoebas wrote: »

No such announcement was made.

Yes , I agree.

There is a carefully worded media campaign in the Independent whose purpose is to misinform and predict terrible things that could possibly happen with no basis for the supposition.

Doom sells papers!!!

Of course charges could go up or down or stay the same . We don't know what the initial charge is yet, so it is likely that charges will go up , or down or stay the same.

If you read the articles carefully they usually refer to " a informed source" or " an insider"

Of course Phil Hogan is a PR disaster and makes the situation worse.

Get off the TV Phil ! You know it yourself!

KindOfIrish · 18-01-2014 8:53pm

raymon wrote: »

Of course charges could go up or down or stay the same . We don't know what the initial charge is yet, so it is likely that charges will go up , or down or stay the same.

Charges never go down or stay the same!

Cookie_Monster · 18-01-2014 8:59pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

Could someone explain to me how using a renewable resource damages the environment? Better cut back on the use of wind and solar power too!

clean, treated water is not a renewable resource. untreated water is but the processing & cleaning of both input water and output waste water is hardly renewable.

Lets also not fool ourselves that 100% of waste water is properly treated countrywide and hence does cause significant environmental damage to rivers and the sea in the long term.

nuac · 18-01-2014 10:00pm

The start up costs appear enormous - €80 million plus

Hogan seems to have let this spin out of control - his plea that he cannot micro manage does not convince. Shocking casual approach.

€32 mln for IT - have not seen any breakdown of this.

The two ladies from his Dept seemed embarrassed to be covering from him.

If left to them I suspect they would challenge a five for the sake of t he tax payer

The lawyers and accountants appear to be off a panel formed 3+ years ago.

Professional fees have been reduced by more than 30% since in the private sector. They should have retendered amongst a wider group of professionals.

goz83 · 18-01-2014 11:02pm

For Reals wrote: »

Sadly, I've seen many posts from people who believe we've been getting 'free' water all these years and the new water charges will not be a double tax, basically paying for what we should have been paying for all along.

The truth is we've not had a water charge in name for years. The money always had to come from somewhere.

In my view the water tax will obviously be a double tax, unless, (and I can't see how) they can deduct any charges previously allocated to water supply from borrowings, motor tax or where ever they've been taking it.

Honestly with all the hype, bluster and bull is it insane to ask why any new charges brought in can't simply go to local Councils so they can improve upon the job they are familiar with and they've been doing for generations rather than starting from scratch with this Irish Water bollocksology? My only answer is they are setting the whole system up for sale down the road.

I'm in agreement here. Although I personally think that they not only set up IW to create jobs for the boys and then sell for peanuts later....I also believe that another reason was our argument that the LPT should also be covering the cost of bringing clean, treated water to our homes as they suggested it was for.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

or simply collect it from the roof and store it - it's not like it doesn't rain a lot.
of course there is still the issue of waste water but I guess the water metres can't cope with measuring out as well as in?

Well it's a pretty safe bet that if the water comes into your house, it's going out your drain eventually, give, or take a few litres a month taken elsewhere and turned into p1ss.

Phoebas · 18-01-2014 11:11pm

goz83 wrote: »

I also believe that another reason was our argument that the LPT should also be covering the cost of bringing clean, treated water to our homes as they suggested it was for.

The property tax was part of the same troika MOU that brought us water charges, so I really don't think there was a suggestion that property tax was going to pay for water.

RandomName2 · 19-01-2014 11:15am

Phoebas wrote: »

The property tax was part of the same troika MOU that brought us water charges, so I really don't think there was a suggestion that property tax was going to pay for water.

To be fair, that is true - although there has never been a clear indicator of what the property tax is to pay for. Wait! It's the parks!

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

clean, treated water is not a renewable resource. untreated water is but the processing & cleaning of both input water and output waste water is hardly renewable.

Really? Like filtration or sedimentation? :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_purification

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

Lets also not fool ourselves that 100% of waste water is properly treated countrywide and hence does cause significant environmental damage to rivers and the sea in the long term.

Umm.. you know, here's a thought:

It is predominantly human waste treatment that you are talking about here, and the compounds used to treat such waste. How on earth does using less water reduce the amount of human waste produced? Volume, sure; but more diluted does not equal more waste.

You may have a point in relation to fertiliser run-off in agricultural use; but that's a slightly different topic.

goz83 · 19-01-2014 5:53pm

Phoebas wrote: »

The property tax was part of the same troika MOU that brought us water charges, so I really don't think there was a suggestion that property tax was going to pay for water.

Yeah, but I said I also believe that another reason was our argument that the LPT should also be covering the cost of bringing clean, treated water to our homes

I don't know when, or where it was suggested, but I know it was Phil Hogan and I think it was on prime time when the whole thing was first being brought into play.

Phoebas · 19-01-2014 6:34pm

goz83 wrote: »

Yeah, but I said I also believe that another reason was our argument that the LPT should also be covering the cost of bringing clean, treated water to our homes

I don't know when, or where it was suggested, but I know it was Phil Hogan and I think it was on prime time when the whole thing was first being brought into play.

I presume the interviewer pulled him up on a pretty obvious misstep.

Tea drinker · 19-01-2014 11:58pm

32 million for IT seems huge for such a small organisation. Shouldn't there be some sort of shared government datacentre for all this stuff, out in the sticks somewhere? Looking at the start up for IT it might be something like this for 300 people in one building:

Network infrastructure:
3 LAN switches, 2 WAN routers
2 firewalls

WAN
Dual 300~ megabit links

Server infra:
DNS DHCP server
Active directory server
Storage dual netapp?

Printers x20

Laptops x 200
desktop x 150

Wonder how come it's so high, as that is not 32 million, even if it is a 5 year agreement.

donegal__road · 20-01-2014 12:12am

Phoebas wrote: »

No such announcement was made.

According to the Marian Finucane show today, Irish Water did state that they had the power to raise the rates if people conserved their water more.

Skip to 15:30

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A20508246%3A70%3A19-01-2014%3A

emo72 · 20-01-2014 12:15am

Tea drinker wrote: »

32 million for IT seems huge for such a small organisation. Shouldn't there be some sort of shared government datacentre for all this stuff, out in the sticks somewhere? Looking at the start up for IT it might be something like this for 300 people in one building:

Network infrastructure:
3 LAN switches, 2 WAN routers
2 firewalls

WAN
Dual 300~ megabit links

Server infra:
DNS DHCP server
Active directory server
Storage dual netapp?

Printers x20

Laptops x 200
desktop x 150

Wonder how come it's so high, as that is not 32 million, even if it is a 5 year agreement.

yeah thats the cheap bit........its the consultants that bring the figure up:(

Phoebas · 20-01-2014 12:43am

donegal__road wrote: »

According to the Marian Finucane show today, Irish Water did state that they had the power to raise the rates if people conserved their water more.

Skip to 15:30

http://www.rte.ie/radio/utils/radioplayer/rteradioweb.html#!rii=9%3A20508246%3A70%3A19-01-2014%3A

All I hear are talking heads speculating about what the charging structure is going to be.

The simple fact is that the CER hasn't made any decisions on any of that yet.

http://www.cer.ie/water/water-charges

emo72 · 20-01-2014 1:04am

Phoebas wrote: »

All I hear are talking heads speculating about what the charging structure is going to be.

The simple fact is that the CER hasn't made any decisions on any of that yet.

http://www.cer.ie/water/water-charges

hhmmmm...you are right, there is no facts yet. we dont know what the pricing is going to be. however its not unusual for things to be leaked to see how the public react, to soften us up, to get us prepared. a bit of kite flying so to speak.

there is a precedent with the pricing. the toll roads have a deal that if they dont get the projected business, the taxpayer takes up the shortfall. it would not surprise me one bit if a similar deal is arranged for irish water.

i could be wrong. thats my best educated guess about how the pricing will be set. i base that on whats gone before. unless you can see a major shift in our public servants to look after our best interests. i doubt that.

Phoebas · 20-01-2014 1:09am

emo72 wrote: »

hhmmmm...you are right, there is no facts yet. we dont know what the pricing is going to be. however its not unusual for things to be leaked to see how the public react, to soften us up, to get us prepared. a bit of kite flying so to speak.

there is a precedent with the pricing. the toll roads have a deal that if they dont get the projected business, the taxpayer takes up the shortfall. it would not surprise me one bit if a similar deal is arranged for irish water.

i could be wrong. thats my best educated guess about how the pricing will be set. i base that on whats gone before. unless you can see a major shift in our public servants to look after our best interests. i doubt that.

My best guess would be a standing charge element - common in other utilities that have big fixed costs.
That's just my own speculation 'though.

emo72 · 20-01-2014 1:13am

Phoebas wrote: »

My best guess would be a standing charge element - common in other utilities that have big fixed costs.
That's just my own speculation 'though.

yeah, biggish standing charge. that wouldnt be a surprise.

edit....on reflection , of course theres gonna be a standing charge. also gonna be expensive enough for what you use. and if we dont use enough to pay for the overheads, they will go to the regulator and increase the charges. whats to guess?

Cookie_Monster · 20-01-2014 1:37am

RandomName2 wrote: »

Really? Like filtration or sedimentation? :rolleyes:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Water_purification

no, like chlroine and flouride, like the power require to run pumping stations etc

RandomName2 wrote: »

Umm.. you know, here's a thought:

It is predominantly human waste treatment that you are talking about here, and the compounds used to treat such waste. How on earth does using less water reduce the amount of human waste produced? Volume, sure; but more diluted does not equal more waste.

You may have a point in relation to fertiliser run-off in agricultural use; but that's a slightly different topic.

It is not predominantly human waste - I assume you just mean urine/fecal matter when you say this. It's dishwater, machine machines,dishwashers, showers and all the filth associated with those uses both disolved and physical waste as well as toilets all from households.

RandomName2 · 20-01-2014 1:08pm

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

no, like chlorine and fluoride, like the power require to run pumping stations etc

Oh, it's not free (naturally). But is there anything fundamentally unsustainable about any of that? Other disinfection methods include things such as UV radiation - this is hardly something that is a limited supply. Of course, the removal of disinfection by-products could be an environmental concern - but I have never heard it mentioned as one.

Cookie_Monster wrote: »

It is not predominantly human waste - I assume you just mean urine/faecal matter when you say this. It's dishwater, machine machines,dishwashers, showers and all the filth associated with those uses both dissolved and physical waste as well as toilets all from households.

Well, all human waste really that doesn't fall into the category of grey water. But using more or less water will not increase or decrease the amount of solid waste that must be processed.

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there are no negatives to using more water; I just don't think that they are many.

creedp · 20-01-2014 2:16pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

Don't get me wrong, I don't think there are no negatives to using more water; I just don't think that they are many.

The question then is why are we spending so much money installing water meters and setting up a fantastically complex and expensive IW to measure and bill for water consumption? Would we have been better off investing this money in improving the current water infrastructure?

Having said that it probably makes those who don't want to pay for the waste of water by others feel better about themselves. I was talking to a friend lately who lives in a city centre appartment who was hell bent on forcing DCC to retrospectively install individual meters for each appartment becasue she was single and didn't want to pay for the water used by the family down the corridor. Says a lot really!

RandomName2 · 20-01-2014 2:49pm

creedp wrote: »

The question then is why are we spending so much money installing water meters and setting up a fantastically complex and expensive IW to measure and bill for water consumption? Would we have been better off investing this money in improving the current water infrastructure?

It would, I suppose. It's ironic how there was virtually nothing spent on the infrastructure during the boom (in fact major industrial areas like SFIE had notorious problems with the water infrastructure).

This is just a money-spinner - and I don't even mind that entirely. But so much of the money that could be channelled into the central government is just being pissed away. It's that that makes all the BS so annoying.

creedp wrote: »

Having said that it probably makes those who don't want to pay for the waste of water by others feel better about themselves. I was talking to a friend lately who lives in a city centre appartment who was hell bent on forcing DCC to retrospectively install individual meters for each appartment becasue she was single and didn't want to pay for the water used by the family down the corridor. Says a lot really!

Reminds one of the debates in England about the poll tax, really.

Chips Lovell · 20-01-2014 3:23pm

RandomName2 wrote: »

It would, I suppose. It's ironic how there was virtually nothing spent on the infrastructure during the boom (in fact major industrial areas like SFIE had notorious problems with the water infrastructure).

I wouldn't call billions "virtually nothing".

RandomName2 · 20-01-2014 6:53pm

Vladimir Kurtains wrote: »

I wouldn't call billions "virtually nothing".

Link?

Sorry for the scepticism but I didn't notice the local authority even fixing major mains leaks until a year or two ago (and that was just a sop for the introduction of water charges).

Chips Lovell · 20-01-2014 7:52pm

For example:

Some €4.6 billion in Exchequer resources has been invested in the water services sector over the past decade. This has included €3.7 billion under the multi-annual Water Services Investment Programmes which, allied with €900 million spent from water services authorities own resources, facilitated the completion of some 480 major water and wastewater public schemes over the period 2000 to 2009.

emo72 · 20-01-2014 7:57pm

i wonder how much of that 4.6 billion spend went on management, consultants?

Water charges

Comments