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INTRODUCTION“You never want a serious crisis to go to waste. What I mean by that, it’s an opportunity to do things that you think you could not do before.” Rahm Emanuel – Mayor of Chicago (Wall Street Journal, Nov 7, 2008)As this pamphlet is being written the rain is pouring outside. Th e cities of Limerick and Cork and many smaller towns about the country are fl ooded, several for the second time in the last year. Th at there might be a problem, or a limit, or a shortage of water in Ireland is the very last thought on anyone’s mind.Yet over the last ten years we have seen repeated crises with our water - water shortages, in sum-mer because of drought, in winter because of burst pipes. And for a country that sells itself for its ‘green’ qualities, there have been problems with the quality of the water supplied – problems that can be life threatening. An outbreak of cryptosporidiosis in Galway in 2007 caused illness in over two hundred and forty people, and led to a boil water notice for fi ve months. A similar outbreak occurred in the Ennis supply in 2008.It would seem inconceivable that, despite our high rainfall, we might be facing major water short-ages in the near future. But offi cial estimates suggest that this may in fact be the case in many urban areas including Dublin. Th e option of bringing water from the Shannon to Dublin is being considered to deal with this.Th e Fine Gael / Labour coalition has used this situation as an excuse or a cover to introduce

Why you should Why you should oppose water chargesoppose water charges

4

charges for water… and, as memories can be short, the Fianna Fail / Green coalition argued exactly the same while in government.Charging they say is necessary…

● because it is a requirement under the EU Water Framework Directive

● because it is the only way to stop us ‘wasting’ water

● because everyone else pays in the EU, so therefore so should we

● because we have signed up to do so as a condition of the EU / IMF/ ECB bailout package

Take your pick. Th e arguments change to suit the moment, but the end result of all of them is that they want to make us pay.Th ey intend to charge us for the supply of water and the treatment of waste water. Once again treating us not as citizens but as customers or consumers who might want to shop around for some extra life comforts.But water is not an optional extra – or a consumer choice. Like the air we breathe, water is one of the essentials for human life. A healthy adult human can live sixty to seventy days without food, but without water, depending on the climate, we will die within three to seven days.And the truth is that we do already pay for our water, we don’t get it for free. We pay for it through our taxes. It may be true that most EU countries charge directly for water. But it is equally true that we pay high taxes for signifi cantly less services. Services which most EU citizens have as right, here are provided by the charity sector, whose funding is another form of indirect taxation, although it is never counted as such..Th is pamphlet looks at the politics behind the proposed charges, at possible alternatives for water conservation and management, and most importantly how we can organise to defeat the charges.We did it before. We can do it again.

WATER IN HISTORYTh e successful management of water has been one of the keys to the advancement of human civilization throughout history. It was necessary for human consumption. But it was also vital for agriculture and, before the development of the steam engine, the harnessing of its energy advanced the productivity of human labour.One of the earliest civilizations was that developed in Mesopotamia, over seven thousand years ago between the Tigris and Euphrates rivers, roughly in present day Iraq. Th e development of an extensive system of irrigation was critical to its success. Th e power of the Egyptian Pharaohs was based on the management of the annual fl oods of the river Nile which enriched the soil of Lower Egypt and thus its productivity. Th e Romans built great aqueducts to bring water to their towns and cities, some of which still function two thousand years later.When the Normans conquered England in the eleventh century, they carried out a great survey to identify all the potential taxable property; a survey which is recorded in a manuscript known as the Domesday Book. Th e survey identifi ed over 6,000 water mills in the country.

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Ireland too had an extensive network of mills, some of a very early date. Th e earliest excavated tidal mill in the world is at Nendrum, a monastic site on Strangford Lough in Co Down, dating to 619 AD. Th e building of the N25 ring road around Waterford City identifi ed another seventh century mill at Killoteran with a vertical water wheel.1 Th e fi rst Ordnance Survey maps for Ire-land, which can be freely viewed online, show water mills in every corner of the country in the early nineteenth century. 2

However despite earlier advances, by the nineteenth century in Europe, water for domestic use was still generally limited to taking of water directly from rivers, lakes or a well and the in-frastructure for sewage disposal was almost non-existent. Cess pits, which had to be regularly emptied, were dug in the basement of houses or in rear yards. Clothes washing, as can be seen in paintings and drawings of the time, was in the local river, as it still oft en is in most of the world. Th e Industrial Revolution with its development of dense towns and cities exposed all the dangers of this.Frederick Engels, Karl Marx’s collaborator, writing in 1845 quotes, ‘It is notorious that in Hudder-sfi eld whole streets and many lanes and courts are neither paved nor supplied with sewers nor other drains; that in them refuse, debris, and fi lth of every sort lies accumulating, festers and rots, and that, nearly everywhere, stagnant water accumulates in pools, in consequence of which the adjoin-ing dwellings must inevitably be bad and fi lthy, so that in such places diseases arise and threaten the health of the whole town.’3

Such conditions aff ected not only those directly living in them. Th e smells were everywhere and as Engels correctly noted, disease threatened the ‘health of the whole town’. But at the time it was generally accepted that disease was spread by a ‘miasma’ or noxious air. However John Snow in the London cholera epidemic of 1854 identifi ed pollution by a sewage cess pit of the water supply as its cause.4 And such disease did not restrict itself to the working class districts – it also aff ected the wealthy.Building by-laws were introduced which set compulsory minimum standards for space, con-struction and sanitation. By the end of the century municipal water supplies and sewerage sys-tems were the norm in most of the advanced cities of Europe, leading to the term of ‘Water and Gas Socialism’.It wasn’t socialism, but it resulted in major improvements in the quality of life as well as of life expectancy. It is this public infrastructure that is now being treated as a commodity to be bought and sold, rather than as a human need.

WHERE DOES OUR WATER COME FROM?Although water falls freely from the skies, it requires considerable human intervention to collect, purify and deliver it and then to clean it when it becomes waste. It is not just a matter of having water, it also needs to be delivered where it is needed.

1 http://www.excavations.ie/Pages/Details.php?Year=&County=Waterford&id=126062 http://maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/3 Federick Engels. Th e Condition of the Working Class in England (1892)4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Snow_%28physician%29

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About 1.6 billion litres of water is treated by water services author-ities on a daily basis.5 Th is image, although taken from the website of multinational Suez subsidiary, Ly-onnaise des Eaux, and refl ects their technocratic approach, gives some idea of the processes involved in getting clean water to its users and cleaning the waste. But it is also a useful reminder that water is ulti-mately a recyclable resource.1. Water taken from rivers, lakes and from underground aquifers.

2. Water treated to drinking quality

3. Storage

4. Distribution and use – industry, agriculture and domestic.

5. Waste collected and piped to treatment plant

6. Sewage treatment

7. Water returned to natural envi-ronment

It is also a useful reminder of a point that we will repeatedly make in this pamphlet, that we don’t need this level of treatment for many of our water uses – fl ushing toilets, wash-ing cars or watering the garden. Domestic consumption accounts for about 8% of our water needs, agri-culture and industry requiring the other 92%. Only 6% of domestic wa-ter is for drinking or cooking.

5 Dept of Environment, Community & Local Government fi gure.

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IRISH WATERTh e abolition of quangos was one of the central planks of the Fine Gael / Labour Party Pro-gramme for Government. Quangos, they claimed, were wasteful of resources, consultant heavy and were not answerable to democratically elected representatives. But Irish Water or Uisce Éireann is possibly one of the biggest quangos of them all, and interestingly it is not subject to the provisions of the Freedom of Information Act (FOI). And the Minister for the Environment, Community & Local Government is not answerable for its actions.Irish Water is being set up on a ‘Public Utility Model’, 51% state owned, with the balance coming from private funds. As such it will be run as a commercial concern with shareholders seeking maximum returns and lenders demanding commercial interest rates. As consultants Pricewaterhousecoopers (PWC) in their report proposing the model for Irish Water put it, ‘Th e public utility model is the most attractive proposition to lenders and is understood by investors who lend to water sectors in other countries.’1

As the state is to withdraw from the funding of Irish Water in 2018, any further funding will be from the private sector. Th e collection of domestic water charges are what make that po-tential private investment attractive.A central body to manage our water and wastewater services is not necessarily a bad idea in itself. Ireland is a small country and water supplies don’t match or stop at county, town or city boundaries. Major investment is required to fi x a leaking system and to ensure clean water supplies for the future. One estimate suggests that currently 41% of treated water is lost through the distribution network, largely because of pipe leakage and illegal connections. Th e antiquated condition of the pipe network is a direct result of years of under-investment, under-investment made even worse by the arrival of the EU-IMF-ECB Troika.If it was just to deal with the poor infrastructure or to coordinate investment and work on its repair, there might certainly be an argu-ment for it. But that is not the case. Key to its remit is responsibility for domestic me-tering – in other words to make us pay for the service. Th e bulk of almost €86 million spent so far by Irish Water on consultants is, we have been told, to set up the billing sys-tem to collect that money. But the reason given for its establishment under the aus-pices of Bord Gáis was because Bord Gáis already had such a system. Why a new sys-tem is required when it already exists in the parent company is anyone’s guess. Or is it just another case of ‘jobs for the boys and girls’? Yet another example of the cul-ture of entitlement that pervades the top of 1 Quoted in Austerity Ireland (2013)

What the consultants have been paid so far…IBM €44.8 million

Accenture €17.2 million

Others €13.3 million

Ernst & Young €4.6 million

A&L Goodbody €2.9 million

KPMG €2.2 million

McCann €0.97 million

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Irish administration and big business? Twenty-nine Irish Water executives are on salaries of over €100,000 – including its €200,000 a year chief executive John Tierney, former Dublin City Manager. All of the 309 staff currently employed by the company are entitled to a bonus on top of their salary, except for Tierney himself - 65 are entitled to a bonus of 14% with 29 entitled to 15%; a further 165 are entitled to 6.5%, with 50 allowed 2.75%. All of this at a time when wages have been slashed throughout the public sector.Two of the new executives, Jerry Grant, Head of Asset Management and Elizabeth Arnett Head of Communications and Corporate Services, are former senior employees of the plan-ning and engineering consultancy RPS, a company controversially involved with the Poolbeg incinerator project in Dublin. A contract originally tendered for at €8 million ended up cost-ing over €30m as the contract was extended … and nothing has even been built. Th e EU ruled that proper procurement procedures had not been followed and that that the contract should have been put out for tender again rather than being left with RPS.Even in their own terms how have Irish Water performed? Th e installation of the meters has been contracted out, with work starting in October 2013. A total of 12,677 meters were installed in Dublin city up to the end of Janu-ary 2014. However the council was called to repair 247 leaks left behind once the contrac-tors had left . Almost one in fi ft y meters were leaking and had to be repaired at a cost of €136,000.One of the companies that got the contact for the meter installation is Sierra, a division of Siteserv, owned by Ireland’s richest per-son, tax exile Denis O’Brien, also the biggest shareholder in Independent News & Media. He tries to control what we drink and what we think.You couldn’t make it up. Ireland’s Golden Circle is alive and well, undaunted by the recession.

Irish Water’s ‘little’ luxu-ries at our expense€20,000 spent on their logo

€6,000 to attend a laughter yoga workshop for team-building

All staff entitled to a bonus ranging from a high of 15% to 2.75%

Gym to be installed in their Dublin City centre headquarters.

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DOES METERING REDUCE CONSUMPTION?In 2009 John Gormley, then Minister for the Environment in the Fianna Fail / Green govern-ment, announced that he would be introducing a system of domestic water metering and that charges would be based on the amount consumed above a free allocation per household. His argument being that our ‘free’ water does not encourage users to conserve supplies … essen-tially that we are to blame for the wasting of water or in the jargon that surrounds the subject, ‘the polluter should pay’, a moral justifi cation for charges. Essentially blaming ‘delinquent’ individuals for water losses … by paying for it we will be reformed and be more careful about its consumption.Superfi cially this seems to make sense, with the fi gures to back it up. Daily domestic con-sumption per head is nationally estimated to be approximately 160 litres - It is just under 150 litres in Dublin. Th is compares to 126 litres in Germany and 116 litres in Denmark where all water users are metered, or an average of 150 litres in the UK where 30-40% of water users are metered.But looked at more closely there is a wide range in the UK fi gures. A 2008 report for the UK Environment Agency, gives the following fi gure for daily domestic use. 1

Minimum Maximum Average

Metered 113.7 149.5 133.4

Unmetered 131.5 177.0 153.8

But there is no evidence that this lower consumption is a direct result of metering. Th ere are many factors at play, the most signifi cant being the condition of the piping infrastructure. Family composition, the numbers unemployed or retired, the numbers at full- time work or education would all have a signifi cant infl uence. At the most basic, if you are at home most of the day you will use the toilet more oft en. Reduced consumption also refl ects changing cultural patterns, for example the use of showers rather than baths.It also ignores the fact that countries with the highest level of metering, such as the US and Canada, also have the highest consumption. 61% of Canadian homes are metered yet con-sumption per person is 300 litres a day – in the US where metering is nearly universal, con-sumption is 425 litres per person per day, almost twice and three times respectively the Irish consumption of 160 litres.Th e fi gures for Germany and Denmark are the result of higher building standards, more effi -cient domestic appliances and good maintenance of the distribution network.Studies to assess the eff ect of water metering were carried out on the Isle of Wright in the UK between 1989 and 1993. Results showed an initial average domestic consumption reduction

1 International comparisons of domestic per capita consumption: http://a0768b4a8a31e106d8b0-50dc802554eb38a24458b98ff 72d550b.r19.cf3.rackcdn.com/ge-ho0809bqtd-e-e.pdf

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of about 11%. But this reduction in consumption did not last. A more detailed examination of the fi gures showed that 40% of this reduction was the result of better leak detection rather than reduced or disciplined consumption. And there was also a signifi cant awareness eff ect of public information campaigns on water conservation. 2

Even if we accept a later UK report suggesting a reduction of 15 litres per person per day as a result of metering, the cost of meter installation in Ireland is estimated to be between €500 and €1 billion. In simple terms investment at this level in the infrastructure and its mainte-nance would be more cost effi cient in conserving water than metering.3 And this does not take into account the ongoing cost of billing and administration of a metered system.And then there are the more extreme cases such as Abu Dhabi where most of the water is pro-duced by the costly process of desalination. Metering had little or no eff ect on consumption by the wealthy, the reduced consumption was primarily by the poor who could not aff ord the high costs, raising major concerns for health.Th e table below clearly shows that investment in small water conservation measures give a far better return than the cost of metering.

Water Saving Measure

Ten year cost of measure (£ GB)

Potential savings in cubic meter

Cost per cubic meter saved

Pay back period (years)

Water Meter 800 252 3.20 Never

Toilet hippos 2 40 0.05 0.25

Dual fl ush retrofi t

20 48 0.42 3.3

Tap/shower head retrofi t

50 186 0.27 2.3

Table 1: Potential saving measures. Figures are 2010 costs. 4

But the ‘polluter pays’ principal also ignores, as previously discussed, that water is not a com-modity like any other. We have the choice of buying or not buying a cheeseburger or a bar of chocolate. But we all, rich or poor, have no choice as to whether or not we use the toilet or have a drink of water. It is not a consumer choice, it is a need.Finally an article by an ESRI economist provides an interesting take on the issue of metering. “Th e existing water charges were unpopular with certain sections of the community, for several good reasons. Being un-metered they were not related to quantity, the bill was infrequent and therefore large (arriving at reportedly awkward times for some families, for example, at the same time as back-to-school expenditures) and the method for dealing with vulnerable families was not standardized and not always adequately addressed.”5

2 Chad Staddon: Do water meters reduce domestic consumption?: a summary of available literature. 20103 Austerity Ireland (2013)4 Staddon5 Susan Scott: Abolition of Domestic Water Charges in Ireland. 2003

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Essentially a suggestion that if consumption was metered and the bills came at a better time, we would be happy to pay them!Metering has nothing to do with conservation of a scarce resource. It has everything to do with turning it into a commodity that can be bought and sold. Water charges either by meter-ing or fl at charges will mean that households with low incomes will eff ectively pay the same or similar charges to those with high incomes – an eff ective transfer of wealth to the rich in our society.

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PRIVATISATIONBut behind the spurious ‘environmental’ arguments is a longer term agenda, an agenda to undermine the provision of public services, paid for through general taxation. An agenda common throughout the world since the arrival of neo-liberal economics under Th atcher and Reagan. An agenda which has sadly also been supported by Social Democratic / Labour Parties throughout Europe on the basis that there is no alternative. And once charges are in-troduced, the service has a price, it has a monetary value allowing private contractors to take it over and run it for profi t.

Th is agenda was confi rmed by the Lisbon Treaty which states that ‘services of general eco-nomic interest’ are subject to the laws of competition, the opening up of the market to private corporations.

Th is is exactly what happened with the bin service. Charges were gradually increased, starting off with minimal charges for tags or ‘per lift ’, followed by the addition of annual charges. Once the charges were being paid the service was handed over to private contractors. And now the waiver for those on low incomes has been removed, despite the fact that supporters of the bin tax argued that those on low incomes would be protected.

Many of the trades unions argued in relation to the bin charges that there was no option but to pay as this was the only way to stop the service being privatised. Today there is not a single bin service left in public ownership in the state. Th ey have all been privatised. We now have the spectacle of diff erent competing companies coming into estates to collect rubbish.

Th e same will happen with water. Th e long-term prospect, if charges are implemented, is pri-vatisation. It will bring productivity, effi ciency and lower prices, we are told. But privatisation of essential public services is not about competition and effi ciency, it is about redistribution of wealth and control, the creation of new opportunities for big business. Th e assets and in-frastructure built with public money are handed to private interests for profi t. We have gone through the experience of Eircom: a successful public company, with a modern infrastructure following major investment in the late nineteen seventies and eighties, was handed over to private interests who asset stripped it.

Once privatised the cost is no longer under public control. Independent Senator Feargal Quinn, who is fully in favour of charging for water, nevertheless expressed his concerns in a Seanad debate in relation to pricing, stating that the price of water in Canada had increased by 58% following a similar proposal and in Denmark, between 1993 and 2004, by 54%.

Professor Sharon Beder, a prominent Australian civil engineer and environmentalist com-mented ‘Privatisation has become the fi nal resort of governments that need funds but are afraid to tax the wealthy and prevent tax evasion by big business. Instead government assets are sold in a scramble for cash at the expense of ongoing dividends and government control of essential services. Privatisation is promoted by a group of powerful vested interests greedy for low risk fi nancial investments, consultancy and legal fees, or banking business. Th ey are aided

13

by business-funded think tanks and economic advisers who spread the ideologically- based belief that private management is superior, despite the plethora of examples contradicting this.’1

Th is is exactly what happened in England and Wales when Margaret Th atcher privatised the ten public regional water and sewerage companies. Th e promise was that the privatised com-panies would bring new investment and improve services. Th e experience was the direct op-posite.

Th ere was a sharp rise in the number of households being disconnected. Th e rate tripled in the fi rst fi ve years, with 18,636 households disconnected in 1994.

Th e Suez subsidiary, Northumbrian Water, between 1989 and 1995, increased their rates to consumers by 110%, whilst the CEO’s salary was increased by 150%. Not surprisingly com-pany profi ts soared by 800%.2 In 1999 the UK water inspector announced that Northumbrian Water had the second-worst operational performance in England and Wales because of poor water quality containing high levels of iron and manganese.3

Th e situation was so bad that the Daily Mail, a staunch Th atcher and Tory Party supporter, was driven to run a feature in 1994 ‘Th e Great Water Robbery’, which slated the companies on all counts: “In recent weeks the penny has been dropping that something has gone horrendously wrong with the privatisation of Britain’s water industry. When it was privatised in 1989 the wa-ter industry was hailed as the jewel in the crown of the Th atcherite privatisation programme….In reality, as a string of reports have confi rmed… the water industry has become the biggest rip-off in Britain. Water bills, both to households and industry, have soared. And the directors and shareholders of Britain’s top ten water companies have been able to use their position as monopoly suppliers to pull off the greatest act of licensed robbery in our history”. 4

Where there is big money to be made, sweeteners are never far behind. In 2000 the water and sewerage system of Grenoble in France was taken back into public control. Eleven years previously, despite a campaign of opposition, a twenty fi ve year concession to man-age the system was given to Lyon-naise des Eaux, a subsidiary of the water giant Suez. Poor service and increasing prices were met with a popular campaign for the re-mu-nicipalisation of the system. Allega-1 Professor Sharon Beder: Privatisation provides no dividends for the poor. Brisbane Times, 10/1/20142 Blue Gold, (2002)3 Blue Gold (2002)4 Water Privatization Fiascos: Broken Promises and Social Turmoil - A special report by Public Citizen’s Water for All program. 2003, www.wateractivist.org

RESULTS OF UK WATER PRIVATISATIONPrice increased by 46% in real terms during the fi rst nine years,Operating profi ts more than doubled (+142%) in eight years,Reduced investments,Public health was endangered through cut-off s for non-payment.Public Services International (2001) report www.world-psi.org

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tions of bribery of the city mayor by Suez were uncovered, worth some €2.7 million - an election donation, goods, fl ights and a luxury apartment in Paris. Both the mayor, Alain Cari-gnon, and a senior Suez executive, Jean-Jacques Prompsy, were sentenced to prison terms.5

Th e Public Service International Research Unit concluded that corruption is a “systemic fea-ture of privatisation processes in water as in other areas.” Even the World Bank in a report Th e Political Economy of Corruption: Causes and Consequences states: “…the privatisation process itself can create corrupt incentives. A fi rm may pay to be included in the list of qualifi es bid-ders or to restrict their number. It may pay to obtain a low assessment of the public property to be leased or sold off , or to be favoured in the selection process… fi rms that make payoff s may expect not only to win the contract or the privatisation auction, but also to obtain suffi -cient subsidies, monopoly benefi ts, and regulatory laxness in the future.”6

Perversely the tendency has been to privatise the most effi cient companies, as being those most attractive from the point of view of profi tability.

5 Hachfeld (2008)6 Blue Gold (2002)

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WATER CONSERVATION & TREATMENTTh e government’s theory is that making us pay for water will have the eff ect of stopping us from wasting this precious resource. During the ‘big freezes’ of recent years the government used its powerful media advantage to give credence to this theory. ‘If people had been paying for water, they wouldn’t have left their taps running’, according to their logic.

Th ere is probably some truth in the statement that some left their taps running albeit that the amount of those instances would seem few. Th ose people included some who had purchased their homes in good faith from the local authorities and from developers supposedly regulat-ed by the state only to fi nd out that when temperatures dropped, the shoddy workmanship was exposed in that pipes were prone to freezing because they had not been buried to the required depth or insulated to a decent standard.

Th e fact is that some of the biggest wastage of expensive treated water takes place because of inadequately maintained, fault-ridden, delivery systems. Years of under-investment mean that up to 43% of water, and more in some areas, is lost through leaking pipes. Water that should be available to use in our homes, schools and workplaces is wasted. A sizeable propor-tion of the treated water that is transmitted toward the end-user never reaches its destination. Instead it leaks into the ground from corroded and fractured pipework, Some of that pipe-work was ineffi cient to begin with, and some of it has a detrimental eff ect on the water quality because of its lead content.

If some of the money scheduled to be spent on metering and in setting up and running Irish Water were put into repair work it could and should go a long way toward making our treated water less expensive. Along with repairs, retrofi tting work could be carried out to improve the quality of the water delivered.

A lot of these problems could be solved by retrofi tting and repair, using some of the money currently being squandered by Irish Water.

Instead of introducing meters that will be expensive to install and costly to administer, the money could be invested in upgrading the network and encouraging water conservation mea-sures. A huge amount of the water delivered would not be needed if we had more conserva-tion methods in place.

A major proportion of our expensively treated water is used for applications that do not re-quire water refi ned a high standard.

● Only 6% of the water supplied to our homes is used for drinking or cooking

● Th e only water apart from drinking water that could easily be consumed by people is water used for brushing teeth

● Th e water used for washing machines need not be drinkable

16

● Water used for showering and washing does not need to be drinkable

● Th e water used to fl ush a toilet requires very little treatment

Dual fl ush toilets are now the norm in new constructions, as are many other water-saving in-novations such as water-miser taps and showers. However it is estimated that there are a mil-lion buildings in the country that have the older high volume toilet cisterns and other wasteful fi ttings. A retrofi tting programme could include replacing such fi ttings in those buildings.

In Britain which is comparable with Ireland recent fi gure show a usage of 51 litres per house-hold per day for toilet fl ushing. In Denmark where dual fl ush toilets are almost everywhere the fi gure is 30 litres. Th is is a saving of 12% before even considering other conservation methods.

Typical Household Water Use

Th ere is also the fact that our present system entails sending treated water over long distances.

Much of the water used in homes at the moment could be supplied from closer to the point of use.

None of this is a new idea. Some older homes, had dual systems -rainwater and mains water- in the past. A lot of those were converted during renovations to be mains fed only and could be converted back. On mainland Europe it has long been the practice for homes to have two separate plumbing systems. Th e main treated water supply is fed to sinks and baths and ap-pliances that require it. Th e run-off is then recovered, fi ltered and pumped to areas where the same level of quality is not needed, like toilets and gardens. Th is practice is known as ‘Grey Water Recovery’ could do a lot to decrease our dependence on treated water and conserve our stocks. Grey water would be suitable for almost 40% of the average household demand.

RAINWATER HARVESTINGOft en when people hear someone speak about rainwater harvesting they are a little dismissive

17

of the ideas because they, correctly, believe that the powers that be are only attaching value to water because of the profi t they can reap from it. Th ey, again probably correctly, believe that if we use less water then we will be charged a higher price per litre, confi rmed by reports of comments by Irish Water suggesting that if people used less we would have to be charged more.

However it would seem that if some of the money and eff ort being put into the introduction of metering were directed toward conservation including as well as retrofi tting to buildings to incorporate rainwater harvesting we could minimise wasted water and use a lot of water avail-able on site rather than drawing it in from far afi eld which is expensive and prone to wastage.

We are a sparsely populated country with relatively high rainfall (over 1,250 mm per year) spread over the entire year. Spain, on the other hand has a yearly average rainfall of 650mm, unevenly spread over the seasons and with some very signifi cant regional variations. Madrid, for example, has an average yearly rainfall of 400mm.

Th e website of the Irish Meteorological Service reports that the actual average number of wet days in Ireland, i.e. days where the measured rainfall is over 1mm ranges from 150 days to 225 days a year, depending on where in the island you are, the lower fi gure being on the east and south east coasts while the higher fi gure is for parts of the west of the country.

Although the amount of actual precipitation (rain, snow, sleet, or hail that falls to or condens-es on the ground) may not be as great as you would think, especially during recent down-pours, it would be diffi cult to argue that we don’t get a lot of rain here. Water is not a scarcity.

On top of that there is the fact, no longer just a theory, he global climate is heating up. Th e implications for Ireland are that, even although we will have warmer summers, our rainfall levels will increase year on year.

Most of the water that falls from the sky in this country comes in from the Atlantic and is therefore relatively clean. It also extremely ‘soft ’ and has none of the lime scale problems asso-ciated with water from river, spring or well sources.

Th ere are various ways of harvesting rainwater. Some of it will have to be retrofi tted to existing buildings. But it should also be a requirement for all new build, both in rural and urban areas.

Obviously a huge amount soaks into the ground. Some of this will go toward topping up the water table while more of it will run into watercourses such as streams and rivers. Some of it will be the run off of buildings and other structures, including homes, offi ces and commercial and public buildings. Th e measurements for an average of these amounts would vary greatly because of a number of factors such as the geographical location of the structure, the shape and angle of the roof and the direction and strength of the local prevailing winds.

Th e trick is to save some of this water to have it available when needed.

In rural areas this is relatively easy. Rainwater coming off the roof of a house is channelled into gutters in the normal fashion, Instead of letting it run into storm drains it is diverted into a

18

tank usually buried underground on the property. Th e water is then pumped from the tank on demand and fi ltered or treated to the required standard depending on the use it is put to. Th e bigger the tank, or indeed the more tanks available, the more can be stored for dry periods. When the tanks are full the excess spills out into the drainage system.

One of the drawbacks with this system is the presence of dirt on the roofs which forms silt and also bacterial undesirables from the likes of bird excrement. Th is is relatively easily screened and treated with fi lters and infra-red and other treatments. Also the use of accessories known as “roof washers” which dump a quantity of the initial fl ow from the roof can limit the amount of unwanted matter entering the system.

A rainwater recovery system with a storage capacity of 6,000 litres would be adequate for a typical home and would cater for 94% of the water needs of an average family.

Th e fi tting of such a rainwater system in a single home would cost in the region of €8,000. With a considerable reduction in the resultant demand rate on the public supply this would seem a worthy case for grant-aiding.

A rainwater harvesting system should pay for itself in about eight to nine years, or less de-pending on the level of grant aid.

A successful home insulation grant scheme was put on place by the government. If RWH projects were given similar incentives, the burden on the countrywide pipe networks could be considerably reduced.

In older more densely built urban areas methods used would have to diff er. Although the use of surface tanks like rain butts could provide some water for gardening and car-washing etc. the site restrictions to having underground tanks on site would need a diff erent approach. One solution could be to have storage facilities located in central areas where the rainwater from multiple buildings could be collected and sent the short distances back to the homes. Another method be the direct feeding of water from roofs through fi ltration units to dedicat-ed attic tanks and on to toilet cisterns.

None of this is impossible. Gibraltar, at the southern tip of Spain with low rainfall, for example has one of the most intensive rain water collection systems in the world. Th e water is chan-nelled from collecting areas into tanks cut into the rock,1

In areas of multiple units such as apartment complexes the methods described above would be relatively less complicated to install.

Th e use of these methods to varying degrees has the potential to greatly reduce reliance on treated water from distant sources. Even if only multiple units such as apartment blocks, low density semi-detached and detached suburban houses and rural housing were retrofi tted to use some of such systems the savings could be huge. Th e money spent on Irish Water could go a long way toward the cost, as could other monies wasted by government in many other areas

1 Pearce (2006) p307

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Another advantage to this kind of approach is that the retrofi tting work could create around 5,000 jobs for about three years, giving a much needed boost to construction sector employ-ment.

It would also go a long way toward addressing the projected shortages for the greater Dublin area where one of the ‘solutions’ being considered is to bring water across the country from the Shannon with a huge potential environmental impact and a cost of up to and beyond €800million.

WASTE TREATMENTBut having found ways to conserve our water supplies, we also have to fi nd ways to treat our effl uent – the dirty water from our toilets, agriculture and industry. Traditionally the ap-proach was to run it into the nearest bog, stream or river or dump it directly into the sea. Over the last fi ft een years there has been signifi cant investment to build treatment systems, so for example the raw sewage that use to be a feature of Dublin Bay is no longer the case. But there are still many towns without a full or adequate treatment system.

And such systems are extremely costly and are very much an ‘engineered’ solution to a prob-lem, a solution that can fail when put under extreme stress. Th ere are alternatives, alternatives that work with the natural properties of the landscape and of plants.

Paddy Woodworth, in a very interesting article in the Irish Times in 2013, described a proj-ect in Waterford which uses wetlands to treat both agricultural and domestic effl uent. 2 He wrote ‘His core idea was beautifully simple. Wetland plants fi lter the many toxins out of dirty water, consuming them harmlessly as nutrients. He began to test constructed wetland “cells”, planted with appropriate rushes and sedges, in purifying his own run-off and domestic waste, combined with riverside plantations of trees, such as willow and alder, that don’t mind getting their feet wet.’

Such a solution may not always be technically suitable for a high density city, although there have been projects using wetlands in urban areas of Germany. But it is ideal for most of Ire-land with its low density settlement. And everything benefi ts, the water itself and its quality, biodiversity and our environment.

Th e beauty is that the creation, or restoration, of wetlands also stores water during periods of heavy rainfall, reducing the problems of downstream fl ood peaks.

Unlike oil, water, if it is controlled and managed as a shared common good, is the ultimate recyclable resource.

2 http://www.irishtimes.com/news/environment/swampy-tale-that-could-help-us-out-of-a-morass-1.1510859

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WHO ARE THE WATER COMPANIES? “If you are looking for a safe harbour in stocks, a place that promises steady, consistent re-turns well into the next century, try the ultimate un-internet play: water.” (Fortune Magazine)1

In this section we look briefl y at some of the major companies that are involved in the man-agement of water services. Th e international experience would suggest that if Irish Water is ultimately privatised or at least franchised out – which we would argue is likely – one or other of these multinationals will be involved. Because of mergers and acquisitions, subsidiary companies and subsequent renaming or rebranding, their development can be diffi cult to follow. But for simplicity we will refer to them as Suez, Veolia, Bechtel and Siteserv.Already Siteserv is involved in the programme of water meter installation. And together the French multinationals Suez and Veolia control 70% of the world water market.2

Veolia Veolia3 is a major multinational operating in 48 countries with, in 2012, almost 320,000 work-ers of which 90,000 are in water. 2012 sales revenue was almost €30 billion, with a net profi t of €394 million. In Ireland it already has a signifi cant operation, including the Dublin LUAS system. Veolia has faced signifi cant criticism because of its role in Israel and the Occupied Territo-ries. In England the Catholic Justice and Peace Commission urged London municipalities to stop doing business with Veolia because of its involvement with illegal settlements. In 2011 the Tower Hamlets Borough Council in London voted to review its position with Veolia and place no further contracts with it, aft er claiming that Veolia’s work for the Israeli government assisted the “continued oppression of the Palestinian people”In a 2012 interview with the Israeli press, Veolia’s Denis Gasquet, senior executive vice pres-ident, admitted that Veolia had been under pressure from pro-Palestinian groups in Europe, particularly over the Jerusalem Light Rail. Parties within Veolia had argued that the group was losing tenders as a result, but Gasquest said he did not know of any tenders lost due to Veolia’s activities in Israel. He confi rmed Veolia’s intention to stay in Israel, while exiting the transport business. 4

SuezSuez5 dating from 1822 is one of the oldest multinationals in operation today, getting its name 1 Barlow & Clarke (2002), p1052 http://www.world-psi.org/sites/default/fi les/documents/research/2012_water_companies-ewcs.pdf3 http://www.veolia.ie/4 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Veolia_Environnement5 http://www.suez-environnement.com/

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for its part in the building of the Suez Canal. With interests in many areas including water, electricity and gas, it has an annual turnover of over $110 billion, employing 214,000 people – with almost 80,000 working in water. In 2012 in its water companies it had total sales of €15.1 billion – 29% from water (€4.37 billion) in Europe, 43% from waste in Europe, and 28% from activities outside Europe. Its 2010 profi t from its water operation was €565 million.In our section on privatisation we described how a director of one of its water subsidiaries was prosecuted for corruption and the company lost the contract for the management of the Grenoble water system.

Bechtel Bechtel6 is the largest construction and engineering company in the US, ranking as the fi ft h largest privately owned company in the country. It has carried out contracts in 140 countries on every continent. In 2012, Bechtel got $37.9 billion in revenue and employed 53,000 work-ers in almost 50 countries, including signifi cant contacts from the Bush regime in Iraq. Th e company does not have signifi cant water operations in Europe, its interest in the context of water arises from its contract for the water supply for the city of Cochabamba in Bolivia, terminated in 2000 following major protests.In Maryland a former principal vice-president is currently facing charges of money laun-dering and corruption. It is alleged that Mr Asem Elgawhary received $5 million in bribes while helping the company to secure a $2 billion contract. He tried to hide the “payments in off -shore bank accounts, giving false information to his former employer, and destroying evidence”, according to the prosecution.7

8

6 http://www.bechtel.com/7 http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2014-02-11/ex-bechtel-executive-charged-with-fraud-money-laundering.html8 http://www.oile mpire.us/water.html

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SiteservSiteserv 9 is a conglomerate of Irish building related companies pulled together during the Celtic Tiger boom. Th e company was bought for €45 million by another company called Millington, based surprisingly enough in the Isle of Man, which includes billionaire Denis O’Brien amongst its owners. Curiously it appears that there were at least two competing off ers for Siteserv - for €52 mil-lion and for €60 million. And to add to the murkiness, solicitors Arthur Cox acted for both O’Brien and Siteserv in the deal. But that was OK as the company says it has procedures in place to deal with potential confl icts of interest.Th e Irish Bank Resolution Corporation (IBRC) the former Anglo Irish Bank had given Si-teserv a loan for €150 million, but got back less than €50m from the sale. Th ey will write off the remaining debt of €100 million. But technically we own IBRC. So we have subsidised to the tune of €100 million, the purchase of Siteserv, by a billionaire speculator. And Siteserv will charge us to install meters at our homes.10

In an Irish Times interview in October 2013, Sean Corkery, Siteserv Chief Executive, stated that revenues will hit €230 million this year, up about 25 per cent. Profi ts he said, are “about seven per cent”, or up to €16 million this year. 11

9 http://www.siteserv.ie/10 http://www.broadsheet.ie/?s=siteserv11 http://www.irishtimes.com/business/sectors/retail-and-services/siteserv-chief-happy-to-answer-the-call-from-denis-o-brien-1.1564520

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WATER & CAPITALISM“Water promises to be to the 21st century what oil was to the 20th century: the precious commod-ity that determines the wealth of nations.” (Fortune Magazine May 2000)1

Water is an essential for life, essential for our domestic needs but equally essential for the production of our food and industrial development. ‘Is there evidence for water?’ is one of the key questions raised in exploration of the planet Mars. Th e question being important as the existence of water would suggest the possibility of life.

In an article in Th e New Yorker magazine journalist William Finnegan summed up some of the issues facing us:

‘Th e world is running out of fresh water. Th ere’s water everywhere, of course, but less than three per cent of it is fresh, and most of that is locked up in polar ice caps and glaciers, unrecoverable for practical purposes. Lakes, rivers, marshes, aquifers, and atmospheric vapour make up less than one per cent of the earth’s total water, and people are already using more than half of the accessible runoff . Water demand, on the other hand, has been growing rapidly—it tripled world-wide between 1950 and 1990—and water use in many areas already exceeds nature’s ability to recharge supplies. By 2025, the demand for water around the world is expected to exceed supply by 56%.

Some of the resource depletion is visible from outer space. Th e Aral Sea, in central Asia, was until recently the world’s fourth-largest lake. Th en Soviet planners dammed and diverted its source waters for cotton irrigation. Th e Aral has since lost half its area and three-fourths of its volume. Its once great fi sheries have vanished; all twenty-four species native to the lake are believed to be extinct. Th e local climate has changed, and dust storms now plague the region.

Aquifer depletion, though less visible, is an even more serious problem. Th ere is sixty times as much fresh water stored underground as in lakes and rivers above ground. And yet parts of northern China, to take one example, are approaching groundwater bankruptcy. Beijing’s water table has dropped more than a hundred feet in the past forty years. In the United States, the Ogallala Aquifer, which reaches from Texas to South Dakota and is indispensable to farming on the Great Plains, is being drained eight times faster than it can naturally recharge. In vast areas of India, Mexico, the Middle East, and California’s Central Valley the story is the same.

Meanwhile, more than a billion people have no access to clean drinking water, and nearly three billion live without basic sanitation. Five million people die each year from waterborne diseases such as cholera, typhoid, and dysentery. Th is enormous, slow-motion public-health emergency is, in large measure, a result of rapid, chaotic urbanization in the nations of the Global South. Traditional water sources have been polluted, destroyed, overtaxed, or abandoned.’2

It has been estimated that women in Soweto in South Africa walk the equivalent distance

1 Barlow & Clarke (2002) p1042 http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/04/08/020408fa_FACT1

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between their homes and the moon each year just to collect water.3

Despite this, in the 1990’s in defence of the so-called ‘free market’, the World Trade Organi-zation changed the defi nition of water from being a human right to a human need – a need making it a commodity that can be bought and sold, a commodity whose trade cannot be restricted. A case for millions of dollars compensation taken by a Californian water company against the Canadian state of British Columbia, who were trying to stop the export of their water, shows that this is not just a theoretical notion.

Th e commodifi cation of water in Ireland can perhaps be most dramatically seen in the growth of the market for bottled water. Th e idea of buying a bottle of fl at water just would not have occurred to anyone thirty years ago. Yet today a bottle of water is almost a required item in everyone’s bag. Worldwide, since 1995, there has been a growth in the market of about 20% a year. By 2000 it is estimated that 89 billion litres were traded a year.4 Go into any shop and you will fi nd multiple brands, which, despite their ‘green’ or local sounding names, are probably owned by Nestlé, Perrier, Veolia, Suez, Pepsi, Coca-Cola or some other multinational.5

And if water can be traded, like oil it can be fought over. As Mark Twain is supposed to have said, ‘Whiskey is for drinking – water is for fi ghting over.’ Rivers don’t respect national boundaries. Th ere are numerous ongoing disputes of larger countries taking more than their fair share of a transboundary river’s water supply, between for example the United States and Mexico, or between Russia and some of its former satellite states.

Control of water is one of the issues at the heart of the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands by the Israelis, described by one commentator as the manipulation of thirst. 40% of Israel’s water comes from the Golan Heights, occupied by them since the 1967 war. Th e Oslo accord of 1995 sealed an unequal division of water in the region, 57 cubic meters per person for the Palestinians and 246 cubic meters per person for the Israelis.6 And the building of the security wall has made matters worse, cutting off thousands of Palestinians from their natural sources of water, leading to failure of crops and the destruction of olive groves that have pro-vided a livelihood for poor farmers for hundreds of years.

Th is clash between an essential for life and the requirements of neoliberal capitalism, ‘red in tooth and claw’, has led to numerous struggles of resistance and fi ght back. Th ere have been struggles ranging from the basic right of access to water, over the quality of supply, against privatisation and for its re-municipalisation. A report by the Public Services International Re-search Unit documents that between 2000 and 2013 eighty-three supplies were brought back into public control, including those for the cities of Paris and Berlin – Paris being of particular signifi cance as the headquarters for the two largest water multinationals Suez and Veolia. 7

But the struggle that has been the most inspirational has been that of the people of Cocha-3 http://www.africanwater.org/development.htm4 Barlow & Clarke (2002) p965 http://academic.evergreen.edu/g/grossmaz/klessill/6 Pearce (2007) p1887 http://www.psiru.org/sites/default/fi les/2013-W-Remunicipalisationswater.pdf

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bamba in Bolivia.8

In February 1996, World Bank offi cials told Coch-abamba’s Mayor that it was making a $14 mil-lion loan to expand its water service on condi-tion that the city priva-tise its water. A further $600 million in interna-tional debt relief was also dependent on Cocha-bamba putting its water into corporate hands. In September 1999, in a closed-door process with just one bidder, Cocha-bamba’s water was leased off until 2039, to an unknown new company Aguas del Tunari, a subsidiary of the US engineering giant, Bechtel.

As we describe in the fi nal chapter, a mass campaign developed, initially over the pricing of water to outright opposition to its privatisation.

Bechtel were forced to admit defeat and abandoned its contract by April 2000. But they were still looking for their ‘pound of fl esh’, fi ling a case for $50 million in compensation with the World Bank. But Bechtel were fi nally forced to withdraw its claim four years later because of the negative publicity and worldwide protests against the company.

Bechtel on its website announced ‘…Th e Government of Bolivia and the international share-holders of Aguas del Tunari declare that the concession was terminated only because of the civil unrest and the state of emergency in Cochabamba…’9

In summary, mass protests work.

8 PHOTO: http://arenaria.home.xs4all.nl/water/pix/Cochabamba/Marchistas%20con%20panfl eto%20en%20la%20plaza.jpg9 http://www.bechtel.com/2006-01-19.html

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THEIR AGENDA & HOW WE FIGHT IT¡El agua es nuestra, carajo!

Th e water is ours, damn it!  Banner of the Cochabamba Coordinadora, Bolivia

Why is all this happening, and what can we do about it? Crony capitalism and ‘jobs for the boys’ have been features of Irish capitalism since Independence. But what is new is the mas-sive debt and the policies of austerity that are destroying our economy and society – a debt which, importantly, was not generated by us.Debt now exceeds 150% of Gross National Product. We are forced to pay €9 billion a year in interest payments. Th e government’s aim is to make low and middle income people shoulder that burden – and let their wealthy friends off easily. Tax on PAYE workers has gone from 27% of revenue in 2007 to 42% today, while tax on profi ts and capital gains has fallen as a propor-tion of the total tax take.Tax on big business is almost negligible. As the Irish Times Business Aff airs Correspondent revealed, Apple, between 2004 and 2008, paid €36million on profi ts of $7.11billion.  As they say, do the maths!And on top of direct taxes there have been increases in VAT, and the imposition of bin charg-es, property tax, water charges and they are now also talking of charging for compulsory health insurance.Water charges are, quite simply, just another way of making us pay for the economic crimes of the bankers, speculators and the wealthy.Th e history of water in Ireland since the 1970s is dominated by controversies about whether there should be charges for domestic supply. When domestic rates, which paid for our water and the treatment of waste water, were abolished in 1977, income tax was increased to com-pensate local authorities for the loss of revenue.But by 1983 charges were reintroduced by some local authorities. And not surprisingly in-come tax was not proportionally reduced. It was not until 1994 that some of the bigger cities including Dublin reintroduced charges. Th ese were met with a campaign of boycott and re-sistance, leading to their abolition in 1997.Water charges were beaten before, we can do it again.

Th e reality is that protest works, and not just abroad. In the late 1970s mass protests and civil disobedience stopped the plan to build a nuclear power station at Carnsore Point in Wexford. Last year a campaign of protests stopped the selloff of our forests that had been agreed as part of the Troika bailout.We need to have a general objective of unseating Labour at every election that they present themselves. When part of Democratic Left , Eamon Gilmore was happy to claim success for the abolition of charges. Th e government sought, and got, permission from the Troika to delay

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the charges until aft er May 2014.A broad campaign of street protests and civil disobedience will be required to encourage an awareness of the charges and their implications and to fi nally defeat them. A look at the move-ment against Bechtel in Cochabamba is instructive.Initially the privatisation plans were opposed by those outside of the city, worried that under the new water regime, they would lose control of their irrigation systems. In November 1999 they blockaded the main roads into the city for a day. “Our objective was to test what capacity we had to fi ght,” recalled Omar Fernández, leader of the irrigators’ union. “We found out that [the people] wanted to move faster than even our leadership”.An alliance of farmers, workers and environmentalists—the Coalition for the Defence of Wa-ter and Life (Coordinadora) was formed which initially focussed on presentation to local meetings, large and small, on the implications of water privatisation. Th e fi rst bills arrived in January 2000. Bechtel claimed the rises were less than 10%, but for many of the poorest, prices rose from 43% and upwards. Th ese were met by three days of blockades. Th e airport was closed. Th e bus service in and out of the valley was suspended. Th ousands occupied the city’s central plaza. By day three the government agreed to review the situation. Th ey were given three weeks to do so.At the start of February, the Coordinadora called for a token protest in the city centre. Th e protest was banned and a thousand heavily armed police occupied the city. Even for those who may not have been sympathetic to the water revolt, the police invasion was a declaration of war against them by their own government. For two days protestors, young and old, fought the police. Th e government, terrifi ed, announced a six month moratorium on price increases. Th e movement had won its fi rst victory.Protests started again in April, shutting down the city for a third time since the start of the year.  Increased repression, including the killing of a young protestor and rumours of a mil-itary coup, was met by more determined opposition. As Anna Lara Durán, a member of the Cochabamba Human Rights Assembly, explained: “Once you have already paid a certain price, you don’t back down; you don’t back down for anything.”Th en, on the aft ernoon of Monday, April 10, the government made an announcement. Of-fi cials of Bechtel’s company, who sat out days of violence watching it on television in a fi ve-star hotel and insisting they wouldn’t leave, had left the country. Th e Bolivian government declared the contract cancelled, saying in a letter to Bechtel, “Given that the directors of your enterprise have left the city of Cochabamba and were not to be found . . . said contract is rescinded.”How we will beat the charges in Ireland?

Just to call for a boycott of the charges as the main emphasis of a campaign is too narrow a fo-cus.  It is too passive a tactic if it doesn’t fl ow from mass people power on the streets increasing people’s confi dence, but also does not involve the campaigns many other possible supporters, including local authority water workers, and environmental activists. Th e experience of the Property Tax- where the Government used revenue to bully people into submission- also strengthens the case for making mass protests a primary focus and then returning to the

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question of a boycott if the mobilisations are successful.A broad alliance of protest will have to be mobilised, a social movement of those directly aff ected by the charges and those who are shocked by the implications of the government’s plans.  A wide political revolt of protest and civil disobedience will be required to halt the rip off of our water and its future privatisation. Such a campaign, if strong enough, could lead to a mass boycott.In April of 2014 Ballyphehane in Cork mobilised to stop the installation of meters, this then led to a series of communities organising to resist Irish Water in their estates. One area in par-ticular, Clondalkin, saw massive attendance at protests and street meetings. Decisions were made at street meetings where everyone could voice their opinion and feel ownership of the campaign. Th is mass democracy is a vital part of the process of raising people’s confi dence and willingness to fi ght back.In areas where the meters have already gone in or where they won’t get to- People Before Profi t worked with residents and the Right2Water Campaign to put on public meetings to organise networks of residents to fi ght.Th e key thing is to remember that only a Bolivian style revolt- mass protests, civil disobedi-ence and strikes- will beat the Government and to get there we need to see the meter protests as only a starting point- a means to delay the Government, inspire resistance and also to build networks of residents in every area who can mobilise for bigger protests which themselves will escalate to mass civil disobedience.We can stop the charges and also help create a movement for a better society that values and protects its natural resources, including water.It’s our water damn it!

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RESOURCES ● Public Service International Research Unit www.psiru.org

● Public Services International www.world-psi.org

● ATTAC. http://www.attac.org/en

● ADES: Association for Democracy, Ecology and Solidarity, Grenoble, France http://www.ades-grenoble.org

● European Water Movement: http://europeanwater.org/

● Broadsheet: http://www.broadsheet.ie/

● Right to Water: http://www.right2water.eu/

● Mike Gonzalez: Th e Politics of Water (2013) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R7u4szE3veI

● Richard Boyd Barrett TD questioning John Tierney at the Joint Committee on Environment, Culture & the Gaeltacht http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=idmFIP5opfk

● Cochabamba: http://democracyctr.org/bolivia/investigations/bolivia-investigations-the-wa-ter-revolt/

● Jim Shultz: Th e Cochabamba Water Revolt and Its Aft ermath http://www.ucpress.edu/content/chapters/11049.ch01.pdf

● Kieran Allen, Brian O’Boyle: Austerity Ireland. Th e Failure of Irish Capitalism (London, 2013)

● Maude Barlow, Tony Clarke: Blue Gold, Th e Battle against Corporate Th eft of the World’s Water. (London, 2002)

● David Blackbourn: Th e Conquest of Nature. Water, Landscape and the Making of Modern Germany (London, 2007)

● Mike Davies: Planet of Slums (London, 2007)

● William Finnegan: Leasing the Rain (Th e New Yorker, April 2002) http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2002/04/08/020408fa_FACT1

● David Hachfeld: Th e Remunicipalisation of Water – Some refl ections on the cases of Potsdam and Genoble (ATTAC, 2008)

● Emanuele Lobina: Grenoble sacks Lyonnaise, re-municipalises water (PSIRU 2000)

● Fred Pearce: When the Rivers run dry. What happens when our water runs out? (London, 2006)

● Paddy Woodworth: Swampy tale that could help us out of a morass (Irish Times, 31 August 2013)

● Blue Gold: World Water Wars (Documentary) http://topdocumentaryfi lms.com/blue-gold-world-water-wars/