Dear Editor,

I contend that it is our patriotic duty to put Irish Water out of its misery before it breaks
the state.
The Eurostat report on Uisce ireann last week was the final straw for a company that
has been mired in controversy since it was set up by Phil Hogan. He thought he had set
up the perfect vehicle to extract more taxes from the already hard-pressed Irish people.
All of this while fattening up the company to prepare it for serving as an inexpensive
morsel to be sold to some vulture-fund, hovering over a country already weakened by
Austerity.
This Government got elected with a mandate for change. But even Fianna Fil would have
been proud of the list of cronies being fed off the mess that is Irish Water. Irish Water was
set up in a cloud of secrecy, and to avoid the risk of competency, quickly took on a few
retired county managers and threw in a few consultants already fattened by the Poolbeg
incinerator fiasco. The company also paid 86 million to consultants while taking 500
new workers on to the Bord Gais bonus scheme, though the actual workload would be
done by the councils for the next 12 years! This shows how this Government has not
learned a thing from previous administrations.
Alan Kelly's answer to making Irish Water right was the 100 conservation grant. This
was rightly rubbished by Eurostat, showing that despite all the highly paid special
advisers even the basics weren't right.
He is now seriously damaged by the conservation grant being paid to everyone, not just
to those who don't conserve, but even to those who aren't even customers. That it would
be paid out of the same department of Social Protection that just weeks before cut lone
parents allowance for people already suffering abject poverty is more of the cynicism we
have come to expect. All of this from a Labour party which told us in their pre-election
comic that they would not introduce water charges.
Between 2014 and 2016 Irish Water will receive 1.317 BILLION of subvention from our
motor and property taxes. There will also be the usual raid on our National Pension
Reserve fund.
To facilitate spending that amount of money, provision of our local services in Tipperary
has been cut to the bone. Town councils have closed, there are Garda stations and social
welfare offices closed, area-offices have closed, and money for roads has been slashed.
In Tipperary let's not forget that the biggest asset in the Irish Water cabinet is Lough
Derg. This will be drained into a private lake in the Midlands to be sold on to the highest
bidder. If that is allowed to happen Tipperary will have lost a prize asset, one which has
the potential to attract jobs into the Mid West. Of course, that presumes that our
Government would look at a proper spatial strategy, one which doesn't focus only on
Dublin.
If 100% of people paid water taxes Irish Water would still not achieve full cost recovery.
That means that it's costing Irish Water more to collect the charges than they are getting
in. In any business model that is a failed concept.

I am asking all good Tipperary people to show that they are still determined by joining a
march through Nenagh on August 8th to Minister Kellys office. The march will start at
14:00 at the Railway station in Nenagh. This event is a nice warm up for the massive
Right2water march on August 29th also at 14:00, but in Dublin.
It is time to stand up and take on a Government who blithely rule a nation with 220,000
children trapped in poverty, while lecturing Greece that Austerity works.
It is your patriotic duty to help finish off Irish Water.
It hasn't gone away, so we havent either!
Is mise le meas

Cllr Samie Morris