Prime Time last night showed a few clips of me commenting on the establishment of Irish Water. As is usual (given the time constraints) a lot of my interview was not included. There are a few points worth making:
Would you rather
Apparently, only Bord Gais and Bord na Mona are still in the running for Irish Water. One has lost focus, the other is in search of a mission. Not an easy choice.
This follows on yesterday’s post.
Ireland is not Greece. Ireland, for instance, does not have a problem with tax collection. Or does it? There clearly is a problem with collecting the household charge. To my mind, the core issue is that the Department of the Environment — which has limited experience with indirect taxation and none with direct taxation — tries to do something for which it was not set-up to do — and refused to call in the experts. Like all departments, Dept Env was already stretched because of the austerity programme.
The household charge is flat: 100 euro per residence. It is easy to determine who should pay. Is it a residence? Are you the owner? If yes and yes, you should pay 100 euro.
The household charge should, at some point in the future, morph into a property tax. There are two key differences. The property tax will be differentiated: More valuable properties would be taxed more. And the property tax will be much higher than the household charge: somewhere between 500 and 1000 euro per household on average.
If Dept Env struggles with something so simple as a low household charge, how will it cope with a more complicated and much higher property tax?
The next episode of the saga re-emerged in the news today: Water meters (1, 2, 3). Households will / will not pay for the installation of water meters. If so, payments will be up front / distributed over the years. If not, the Dept of Finance / National Pension Reserve Fund will make up the difference, perhaps as a soft / commercial loan to Dept Env / households. Installation will cost at most 300 euro per meter / at least 300 euro per meter / not yet known.
The semi-state that is to implement water meters, Irish Water, was supposed to start in early January. It is now mid April and plans are not yet definite. It is not even known whether Irish Water will be an independent entity or a subsidiary to Bord Gais or Bord an Mona. The National Roads Authority is apparently no longer in the running, and private companies (Veolia, Tesco) were never considered. As perhaps 4,000 county council staff may be transferred to Irish Water, it may want to recruit from the HSE to draw on their expertise in forging a national entity out of disparate regional ones.
This matters. Water meters are part of the ECB/EU/IMF agreement and the Water Framework Directive. As long as there is no Irish Water, Dept Env will fulfill its duties in the interim — duties that are beyond its actual remit. I worried about that in January. This piece has an intriguing remark at the end. Apparently, at least one county council is rushing through decisions, preempting the presumably stricter regulatory regime expected under Irish Water and the Commission for Energy (and Water) Regulation.
As I have argued before, there is an advantage to electing competent managers (rather than school teachers) to the Dail, as TDs may become ministers in charge of sprawling bureaucracies. Of course, it would help if the higher echelons of the civil service would have similar competencies.
Minister Hogan appears to have waived the septic tank registration fee. That is fair and proper. The sewage bill in cities and towns is picked up by the taxpayer too. Either everyone poos for free, or no one. I favour the latter.
The minister has also indicated that inspections of septic tanks will be “risk-based”, and has redefined that concept as “if pollution is found nearby”. Commonly, risk is an ex ante concept. Inspections are supposed to prevent pollution.
Article 13 of the waste directive (2006/12/EC) specifies that inspections be periodic. Unless the department intends to periodically find pollution near each and every septic tank, the proposed inspection regimes will breach EU law.
That would not be a first. Friends of the Earth reviews the history of Irish waste water and EU law. Ireland has been in breach of EU waste law since the original waste directive (75/442/EEC) of 1975. No wonder that the Commission is seeking to impose fines.
UPDATE: The minister is in a particularly generous mood this week: There will be grant aid to upgrade faulty septic tanks.
The public consultation on the establishment of Irish Water opened today. See here and here.
As I’ve argued before, charging for water and waste water is right and proper; and doing so through a state-owned, tightly regulated monopoly is a reasonable solution (although you can argue for a mutual company instead).
The contents of the position paper published today were well-leaked and contain little news. The position papers confirms that Irish Water will also be responsible for waste water and waste water treatment. Council staff will be transferred to Irish Water, probably with a considerable improvement in working conditions.
The Commission of Energy Regulation will regulate Irish Water. There is no sign of the creation of a super-regulator. The new CEWR will be inter-departmental, though, an interesting experiment.
The department persists in two follies – mandatory roll-out of water meters, and free allowances – but a third folly – universal metering – has been dropped.
The time table has been slipping, which is no surprise as it was so ambitious. The public consultation was supposed to start in October, and Irish Water was supposed to start work in January. Originally, the plan was to install 1.4 mln meters in 2 years time; that is now 1.0 mln meters in 3 years time – less than half as fast. It is not clear to me that this would support 2,000 jobs: 500 meters per job, installing two meters in three days.
To make up for lost time, the Department of the Environment now intends to start the work of Irish Water. This is a mistake. Like any department, Environment is struggling with staffing as it is. Utilities are better at being utilities than departments are. Utilities are also better at resisting cronyism than departments – every TD will want a water metering contract to go to their favourite engineer cq plumber. Irish Water will wrestle with the legacies of the county councils, and it is now being saddled with a departmental legacy as well.
Maybe the public consultation will further improve the plans.