Workers
Party councillor Ted Tynan has said that the new Irish Water company had become
a magnet for profiteers and opportunists, many of them hoping to make a
financial killing from the eventual privatisation of the public water system.
Cllr.
Tynan said that while Fine Gael and the Labour Party had come to power on a
platform of so-called reform, including the abolition of 145 Quangos, they had
created a super-quango in Irish Water which had already engaged a raft of
consultancy firms at a cost of €50 million to the taxpayers.
“It
is not however only the issue of this huge sum of money paid to consultants
that is deeply disturbing”, said Cllr. Tynan, “but the nature of the
consultants and the previous roles most of them have played in privatisation of
public assets, including water. Like vultures these consultants have come to
pick on the bones of the public water system and are being paid a huge bounty
in the process, a tab that will be put onto the consumers who already pay for
water through taxation”.
Cllr.
Tynan will be calling for the suspension of Standing Orders at a meeting of
Cork City Council tomorrow evening (Monday) in order for the issue to be
discussed. He concluded by saying that the Irish Water
debacle should be a wake-up call to householders. “It is not too late to stop
water charges and the march of Irish Water in their tracks by halting the
installation of water meters. This requires public resistance on a major scale
but the alternative is to surrender to ever soaring charges and sale of a critical
public asset”.
