Why don't you publish more about the good stuff you are doing?

TomMurphy64

As someone who has paid my water charges one thing that frustrates me about Irish Water is why don't you publish more about the good work you are doing to sort out the mess of leaks etc that existed under the old system?

It would give you and us ammunition when we are faced in the pub by those that haven't paid. Why not publish a list of all the leaks  that have been fixed and how long it is thought they existed for?

Of course this assumes you are fixing leaks that have existed for long before you were formed or am I just been hoodwinked as the people in the pub keep telling me......

mikom

Try these few dingers........

1. If 100% of households paid the charge, the money collected would roughly cover the cost of collecting the money - so not one euro paid would be used to provide water or upgrade the water system.

2. At current payment rates, there'll actually be about €25m LESS available for water service provision, as it'll cost about that much more to collect the money that the money that's collected.

3. In the first 10 years, the total cost of collecting the charge will be about €1bn - that's 2 children's hospitals, or 2,000 additional school teachers.

4. The additional borrowing, which will still count as public debt, will cost MORE than had it just been borrowed as public debt, as Irish Water's interest rates are, inevitably, higher.

5. The total additional investment in the water system, under Irish Water, is about €200m per year - that's far less than could have been saved by moving to a single utility provider, had it been done properly (and at a level that would likely not have required any compulsory redundancies).

6. It costs about twice as much in Ireland to run the water system as it does in the UK. Scottish Water reduced their cost base by 40% in the first five years - Irish Water's cost base has gone up (at least for now).

Boards.ie: Niamh

While I realise that this was a well-intentioned thread, it's not a customer query for the reps to answer so I'm closing it. 

Reps if you want it re-opened, let me know. 

Thanks. 

Irish Water: Allanah

Hi TomMurphy64,

TomMurphy64 wrote: »

As someone who has paid my water charges one thing that frustrates me about Irish Water is why don't you publish more about the good work you are doing to sort out the mess of leaks etc that existed under the old system?

It would give you and us ammunition when we are faced in the pub by those that haven't paid. Why not publish a list of all the leaks that have been fixed and how long it is thought they existed for?

Of course this assumes you are fixing leaks that have existed for long before you were formed or am I just been hoodwinked as the people in the pub keep telling me......

Thanks for your suggestion.

We currently provide a full list of all of our current infrastructural projects on our website. You may also have heard or read some of the messages we are currently running in the national media (radio, online and print media) that highlight some of the progress we have made in improving water services in Ireland to date. Some of the projects mentioned in this campaign are:

Making Donegal's beaches cleaner- Irish Water is working to improve the water quality in Bundoran and will shortly begin construction on a new wastewater treatment plant which will serve 12,000 residents in the area.

Making drinking water safe for 22,700 residents in Co. Roscommon- The Boil Water Notice was officially lifted for 6,000 residents in Boyle on 1st May and has recently been lifted for 11,300 residents in Killeglan and Castlerea. An additional 5,400 residents in North East Roscommon will have normal drinking water supply to customers towards the end of 2015.

Preventing the pollution of our waterways in Co. Carlow - The existing old wastewater treatment plants in Hacketstown and Rathvilly, Co. Carlow have been replaced with modern treatment facilities, which will serve 4,000 residents.

I hope this information helps.

Kind regards,
Allanah

TomMurphy64

Okay great. Great in particular to hear about Roscommon. I live in Munster and have no connection at all with Roscommon but it was a glaring embarrassment for the whole country, how long the people in Roscommon hadn't had access to clean water.

However to just follow up on a few of your other points. No I haven't seen anything in the media I frequent about the good work you are doing. Sorry but how sure are you, your media campaign is effective?

Secondly I did follow your link and you don't have a full list of the improvements on your web site. You have a very crude looking web page where you have to enter locations to get a list of what is happening at those locations. To be honest I am not going to be visiting your web site in the first place but if I did I am certainly not going to be entering names of counties or places all around Ireland just to know what you are doing.

Finally I did look up my area and you had listed there that you did some contact in the local waste treatment centre. However it doesn't say what that was or if it was just an improvement to something already working okay or if it was to address an issue that had gone unaddressed previously. Again what we need to be hearing from you is why things are better now than before and I don't feel we are getting that..... Great to hear about Roscommon however....

N64

Why exactly was Irish water needed when historically speaking, all of the projects similar in scale to what you've been conducting have been carried out by the various city councils of Ireland? 

Irish Water: Aaron P

TomMurphy64 wrote: »

Okay great. Great in particular to hear about Roscommon. I live in Munster and have no connection at all with Roscommon but it was a glaring embarrassment for the whole country, how long the people in Roscommon hadn't had access to clean water.

However to just follow up on a few of your other points. No I haven't seen anything in the media I frequent about the good work you are doing. Sorry but how sure are you, your media campaign is effective?

Secondly I did follow your link and you don't have a full list of the improvements on your web site. You have a very crude looking web page where you have to enter locations to get a list of what is happening at those locations. To be honest I am not going to be visiting your web site in the first place but if I did I am certainly not going to be entering names of counties or places all around Ireland just to know what you are doing.

Finally I did look up my area and you had listed there that you did some contact in the local waste treatment centre. However it doesn't say what that was or if it was just an improvement to something already working okay or if it was to address an issue that had gone unaddressed previously. Again what we need to be hearing from you is why things are better now than before and I don't feel we are getting that..... Great to hear about Roscommon however....

Thanks for your feedback,

I will pass this information on to both our marketing and online teams. If there is anything else we can help you with please let us know.

Kind regards,
Aaron

I'm impressed at how many unregistered people you seem to be accurately identifying.