Thursday 5 June 2014

Ireland has a water shortage


According to the new state body that is taking over the country’s water supplies.  When the economy dictated that the country should save, all the politicians, bureaucrats and profiteers came together to see how the country could not save, but lay their hands on more.  One of the solutions was to spend hundreds of millions of euro on installing water meters to more than 1 million households that the country so far had not needed, and could have done well without.   Not only that, but since Ireland’s closest neighbour was the one with experience in installing these meters, most of the contracts event there, not even benefiting the local economy.  And have you ever thought of the standards of the installation of these water meters.  It will cost the new quango extra to have it done well, but they will benefit economically if there is a leek on your side of the meter.  There is a lot of talk about how you should fix your dripping taps, but a drip a few feet underground will never be discovered and can easily eat up your measly “free” allowance.

Metered water will lead to a colossal additional private outlay on all sorts of water collecting devices for the less efficient individual collection of rainwater.  A reduced use of water for example for toilet flushing which will lead to more clogged sewage pipes because there is still the same amount of unmentionables and paper to flush away but less water to do it with.

And the new quango  (same as the old quango Board Gais) has already forecasted that it needs to spend untold hundreds of millions on new water projects.  It’s easy to hide some big bonuses to the top brass among a billion Euro of projects.  Percentage-wise the outlay on performance bonuses will be so “insignificant”

 I specially feel sorry for all them that has already had to pay for their own water treatment plants in the community, had them roughly expropriated by the state and now is expected to pay for the water all over again.

Politicians and bureaucrats do not know the meaning of the word save


Take the example of a department or council that has got the word to save 10% next year on a service they provide.  To you and me that is spend 10% less money than you spent this year.  To effectuate this they start a user pay fee for a little extra around the edges that brings in an extra 20%.  Since the little extra only cost 10% they pat themselves on the back for needing a 10% smaller budget that year. 

Problem is they haven’t actually saved anything.  It’s the other way around.  They have spent 10% more rather than saved 10%.  How the money was collected is irrelevant in government services. Whether the total spend was through general taxes or through some general taxes and some direct fees is irrelevant for the public.  They are still money they have to pay, often not entirely voluntarily. 

Saving the environment by polluting more?


10 years ago when I moved into my house a single bin truck collected all the weekly waste in the area by coming along on a Tuesday morning.
Then it was opened for competition and we got 3 operators equalling 3 bin-trucks a week.  Next step was a green bin for recyclable waste, so now each company needed to send 2 bin-trucks a week and since with competition prices now had doubled, more got in on the act.  We then had 10 bin Lorries every second week (green (bin) week) and 5 every other week.   Next step I hear is another brown bin to be emptied every second week. 
So after all this recycling for a greener world is done, we will now be visited by 10 bin-trucks every week:  4 on Mondays, 2 on Tuesdays, 2 on Thursdays and 2 on Fridays, unless it’s a Bank Holiday when we will have 4 on Saturdays also.  And this single ended lane only has 22 houses on it
Going from 1 to 10 trucks every week.  Is that the way to save the planet?