Galway water rights handover could be jobs disaster

The impending changeover has been branded “disastrous” by one councillor, who warned it could cost hundreds of jobs in the hospitality and leisure sectors, as well as rising costs for households.

Under the Government’s new ‘Service Level Agreement’ with the local authority, pricing for domestic and commercial customers will be controlled by the by the Commission for Energy Regulation, while reports for leaks and service interruptions will be handled by a central call centre in Limerick.

The City Manager and his senior officials are understood to have serious reservations and concerns about Environment Minister Phil Hogan’s new legislation – it will have an impact across Council departments, including finance and property.

Brendan McGrath is due to make a report to councillors at a meeting today (Monday) outlining the impact the changeover will have and is expected to allow councillors vote on the issue.

Cllr Michael Crowe – Chair of the Council’s Transport and infrastructure Committee – has proposed (and received backing from other councillors) that the Manager not sign the Service Level Agreement (SLA), despite the Minister holding the executive power to introduce the change.

The SLA is supposed to be signed later this month – the issue is expected to cause a heated debate in the Council Chamber next week.

Ironically, Irish Water is headed by the former Galway City Manager John Tierney.

“There are serious questions to be answered regarding the transfer of the city’s water supply over to Irish Water. For example, when a there is a problem like a burst and a member of the public wants to report it, they will have to ring Irish Water and not City Hall. Imagine!

“When repairs need to be done, Irish Water will have to give approval to Galway City Council before the works can be carried out. Furthermore, and this is my deepest concern, the price of water will be decided by the Energy Regulator and not by the Council in our Budget (until now, commercial water charges have been set by local authorities).

“It will work the same as electricity and gas do now. The regulator decides and that’s it. No appeal, no direct say, end of story. Effectively, some guy in an office in Dublin will decide on how much our water will be. It is absolute madness.

“We have seen through the rise of gas and electricity costs what centralising power to an office in Dublin does. It results in higher prices for everyone.

“This whole rush to ram this through and hand everything over to Irish Water is nonsense. We should do all we can to stop this. Since our difficulties with cryptosporidium we have done enormous work and now have water that is second-to-none in the country. And now after all this, the Government has decided to take our water out of our control and hand it over to an office in Dublin. 

“Every water user in Galway should now understand that this will result in higher prices. The big users such as hotels, leisure centres, sports clubs etc will all see their costs rise and subsequently the prices for their customers will rise,” said Cllr Crowe.

A spokesperson for the City Council said the issue is under ongoing discussion between the City and County Managers’ Association and the Water Services Transition Office.

“The Manager is proactively and strongly looking after issues for a seamless provision of water. Collectively, as Managers (around the country), they are engaging with Irish Water.

“The transition to Irish Water is a dynamic process which is ongoing, for example, the City Manager received the latest draft SLA on Thursday morning, which he will be considering and bringing before councillors on Monday,” said the spokesperson.

He said that repairs will be fixed by customers phoning the Irish Water call centre, which will then dispatch a crew.