Two years on, Irish Water is as bad as ever

WHEN Irish Water boss John Tierney announced, two years ago yesterday, that the new utility had spent €86m on consultants during the set-up process, there was justifiable uproar.

Now the Irish Mail On Sunday, through the Freedom of Information Act, can reveal that this figure was only the tip of the iceberg – the consultants haven’t gone away, you know.

In fact, from January 2014 up to August 2015, Irish Water spent a further €8.1m on outside help, from legal, accounting and engineering firms, including A&L Goodbody, Arthur Cox, Ernst & Young and the controversial RPS Engineering Services. The cost of these consultants actually rose over that period, too, and in 2015 was working out at a staggering €19,669 a day, or €597,458 a month.

At a time when many are struggling to pay even the capped charges of €160 or €260 a year, this is beyond outrageous. After all, we were told it was necessary to pay for water in order to improve an ageing network of treatment plants.

Now we find that a lot of this money is going to feather the nests of big law and accountancy firms, and that Irish Water has been more than a little jesuitical by stripping out the costs of consultancy from those recorded during the setting up of the utility.

This does nothing to dissuade us from our belief that Irish Water cannot be trusted, and that it is the most toxic legacy of this Government.