Sir, – From an operational perspective, it is envisaged that local authorities will be engaged as agents of Irish Water up until January 2015 when this arrangement will end on a phased basis.
I had personal experience as a road maintenance engineer, of a similar changeover in the UK of water supply from local area water boards (similar to local authority control) in the early 1990s to a dozen water utility companies which have a monopoly in each area of the UK they serve.
Following the passing of the legislation for this changeover in control of water supply, responsibility for the design and completion of the final reinstatement of pavement surfacing works following water utility excavations was transferred from the local authority control to the water utility organisations.
Before the passing of the legislation, local authorities designed, supervised and completed these final reinstatement of pavement surfacing works. These works were mostly contracted to the medium and large road surfacing companies.
These works were usually completed to a very high standard.
The cost of these works were reimbursed to the local authorities by the local area water board organisations.
The local authorities were always in control of their road surfaces.
Following the changeover in 1991, there has been a serious deterioration in the standard of workmanship of final reinstatement works, which have been carried out by the water utility companies, which has led to a huge backlog and huge expense in trying to remedy the serious decline in the standard of highway road surfaces in the UK.
Reactive maintenance is so much more expensive than planned maintenance.
The former government-owned water utility companies have now become public limited companies, more responsible to their shareholders than to the public.
Local authorities in the UK have lost complete control of the standard of workmanship for the final reinstatement of the road pavement surfaces on “their” roads.
Before this happens in Ireland, possibly without any debate, surely there should be some discussion with all the stakeholders. (The County and City Managers’ Association (CCMA), NRA, Department of Transport, etc) before the same very costly mistake is made in Ireland as happened in the UK 20 years ago.
RORY O’CONNOR,
Broadwell Drive,
Pennington Leigh,
Lancashire, England.