Water Charges. How much?

[foxcommander]

We're getting done coming and going. The chestnut of saying we should be paying for water is ignoring the fact that we supposedly already ARE via the existing taxes. If they want to reduce our income tax, and then tax things like Property, Water or whatever based on usage, then fair enough. But its a ballix to pay twice for something.

As gerrykeegan said in the previous post taxes do not cover government expenditure, so you are not paying for everything. Now you can take an idealogical perspective and say that other taxes should be increased rather than charging for water, but alleging that you are paying twice makes no sense.

I explained my take on this above. It's fine to say we never paid for water until now, but I take that we are and do pay for it via PAYE and other taxes. If they need this money to pay for Water now, in addition to what we have already paid to cover the public cost of water, then in effect we are paying for it twice.

Well then, since there is a deficit which piece of expenditure do you wished removed so that your water can be paid for?

I would like to see efficiencies brought into the public sector which would see the high taxes we already pay used properly. It's unbelieveable really. We keep giving the government money, they keep f**king it away, and they keep coming back to us to give them more under a different guise. I realise I'm only bitching, and I do see the merit in paying for services, but I hate to see wastage, and that's what we are seeing all over the place.

+1

If you got an actual breakdown of each service, how much they cost to run without wages/renumerations then you would see the true reflection of the value for money you are getting.

[armaghniac]

I would like to see efficiencies brought into the public sector which would see the high taxes we already pay used properly. It's unbelieveable really. We keep giving the government money, they keep f**king it away, and they keep coming back to us to give them more under a different guise. I realise I'm only bitching, and I do see the merit in paying for services, but I hate to see wastage, and that's what we are seeing all over the place.

But none of the debate is about efficiencies and efficiency is scarcely  mentioned. For instance, there had been no demand whatsoever for the publication of statistics that would allow efficiencies be measured or compared. Northing will change until people focus on the problem areas and insist they be fixed and stop bitching about everything in general.

In any case much of the Irish public provision is "efficient", for instance class size is bigger than elsewhere and less ambulances are used and not much can be done to reduce provision.

If you got an actual breakdown of each service, how much they cost to run without wages/renumerations then you would see the true reflection of the value for money you are getting.

As I said above. However one problem is that any data is routinely abused by the Indo and the like to mislead rather than shed light on the situation.

[Rossfan]

gerry. We are not 'technically' being charged twice because there is nothing that specifically says x amount of your PAYE is going to water. However, Water has always been a public service, which is paid for with taxes.

What they are doing now is creating a new tax, for water, while still retaining the other taxes to pay for other stuff, like the bail out. That's my problem with it. In the past 10 years we've had the USC, the Property Tax and now the Water Tax. We already pay income tax, which is supposed to pay for services, in theory at least, PRSI, VAT and Motor Tax (which is supposed to go to road infrastructure). We pay a TV license which is another tax to supplement a different service again.

It seems to be like this, and I accept this is very simplistic.

Gov: Right Johnny, we're going to give you a job, but you're going to have to give a percentage of your salary so that we can keep the country running ok?

Johnny: Ah right. OK, well I suppose that's fair enough. Sure if we all club together we should be able to have things ticking along. How much.

Gov: Well, we'll let you keep the first 20 quid you earn in every 100, and then after that we'll take 41% ok? Lets say you make 100 euro, you'll give us €33 ok?

Johnny : OK, fair enough. That leaves me with €67 and keeps the country running. I like the idea of that.

Gov : Exactly. Now, there is the matter of PRSI. This is just a little amount we take off you to help pay Social welfare and the like, you know just to keep things ticking over. Lets say just €4 of your 100?

Johnny : Another €4? OK. I'd have thought social welfare was part of keeping the country running, but maybe not. OK, we'll say €4. Sure that still gives me €63 out of my 100. Fair enough.

Gov : Exactly. See how it works. You keep the country running for that €37. Now of course it doesn't cover the Universal Social Charge.

J: What's that?

Gov : Ah well, it's this sort of charge that everyone who earns has to pay to help keep the country running.

J: What? Like PAYE and PRSI?

Gov : Oh no, not like them at all. Well, kind of like them. A bit. Anyway, never mind. It's only another say €5 of your €100.

J : OK, so that brings me down to €58 out of my 100. getting saucy now, but sure I suppose it's all being used wisely, and at least it provides for services.

Gov : Heh heh, good one. Ah yeah, it does though. Provides all those public services you need to keep a country going.

J: Great, ok so sure thanks a million. Good luck.

Gov : Eh actually, there's a wee bit more. Hang tough there for a second.

J: Wha?

Gov: Well, there's VAT.

J: What is that?

Gov: It's called Value Added, erm.... eh Tax.

J: Another tax? For what

Gov & J: To keep the country going.

J: OK, ok ok. what is it.

Gov: well this is a bit harder to quantify for you, but lets just say that nearly everything you buy includes a contribution to the state of 13.5% of it's price.

J: Wow. Ok. So if I spend €10 if my poor €58 that's left, €1.35 is going to the government?

Gov : Yep. To keep the country running. It's only fair really. Sure you don't *have* to buy 'stuff'. Like electricity or heating.

J : Hmm.

Gov : OK. And there's a just a couple of others. Water. Property. Vehicle. TV Licence.

J : What?

Gov. : Well yes, these services don't pay for themselves you know. Water costs money. Having your house sitting there in a county costs money. Roads cost money. Ryan Tubridy Costs money. It's not going to pay for itself you ingrate.

J : But Jaysus, what about the 41% tax, or the PRSI, or the USC or the VAT? I thought they were to keep the country running? And I have to pay to get my bin collected by a private company!

Gov : No no no, they're completely different, and any eejit can see you need to pay to get water, a road to drive on and Ryan Tubridy on your telly. I'm not sure what the property tax is for now to be honest.

J : Jaysus. It's a bit steep. But sure I suppose it's to keep the country running.

Gov : Good man.

J : Is that everything?

Gov : Yes. For now. Can't think of anything else, but come here, how much air do you think you breathe every day? Never mind.

J : What will I do with my 2 or 3 cent left over?

Gov : Put it in a bank. To keep the country running.

You must have a great jobeen to have the time for posting all that .....

[AZOffaly]

I would like to see efficiencies brought into the public sector which would see the high taxes we already pay used properly. It's unbelieveable really. We keep giving the government money, they keep f**king it away, and they keep coming back to us to give them more under a different guise. I realise I'm only bitching, and I do see the merit in paying for services, but I hate to see wastage, and that's what we are seeing all over the place.

But none of the debate is about efficiencies and efficiency is scarcely  mentioned. For instance, there had been no demand whatsoever for the publication of statistics that would allow efficiencies be measured or compared. Northing will change until people focus on the problem areas and insist they be fixed and stop bitching about everything in general.

In any case much of the Irish public provision is "efficient", for instance class size is bigger than elsewhere and less ambulances are used and not much can be done to reduce provision.

If you got an actual breakdown of each service, how much they cost to run without wages/renumerations then you would see the true reflection of the value for money you are getting.

As I said above. However one problem is that any data is routinely abused by the Indo and the like to mislead rather than shed light on the situation.

Is this not precisely what I am saying? If it's not, it's what I am trying to say. I go back to my €10 analogy with Billy there. If you ask me for a €10 per day to keep yourself fed and watered, no pun intended, and then you ask me for €2 more for some food, I'm entitled to ask you what the f**k you spent the tenner on.

[AZOffaly]

gerry. We are not 'technically' being charged twice because there is nothing that specifically says x amount of your PAYE is going to water. However, Water has always been a public service, which is paid for with taxes.

What they are doing now is creating a new tax, for water, while still retaining the other taxes to pay for other stuff, like the bail out. That's my problem with it. In the past 10 years we've had the USC, the Property Tax and now the Water Tax. We already pay income tax, which is supposed to pay for services, in theory at least, PRSI, VAT and Motor Tax (which is supposed to go to road infrastructure). We pay a TV license which is another tax to supplement a different service again.

It seems to be like this, and I accept this is very simplistic.

Gov: Right Johnny, we're going to give you a job, but you're going to have to give a percentage of your salary so that we can keep the country running ok?

Johnny: Ah right. OK, well I suppose that's fair enough. Sure if we all club together we should be able to have things ticking along. How much.

Gov: Well, we'll let you keep the first 20 quid you earn in every 100, and then after that we'll take 41% ok? Lets say you make 100 euro, you'll give us €33 ok?

Johnny : OK, fair enough. That leaves me with €67 and keeps the country running. I like the idea of that.

Gov : Exactly. Now, there is the matter of PRSI. This is just a little amount we take off you to help pay Social welfare and the like, you know just to keep things ticking over. Lets say just €4 of your 100?

Johnny : Another €4? OK. I'd have thought social welfare was part of keeping the country running, but maybe not. OK, we'll say €4. Sure that still gives me €63 out of my 100. Fair enough.

Gov : Exactly. See how it works. You keep the country running for that €37. Now of course it doesn't cover the Universal Social Charge.

J: What's that?

Gov : Ah well, it's this sort of charge that everyone who earns has to pay to help keep the country running.

J: What? Like PAYE and PRSI?

Gov : Oh no, not like them at all. Well, kind of like them. A bit. Anyway, never mind. It's only another say €5 of your €100.

J : OK, so that brings me down to €58 out of my 100. getting saucy now, but sure I suppose it's all being used wisely, and at least it provides for services.

Gov : Heh heh, good one. Ah yeah, it does though. Provides all those public services you need to keep a country going.

J: Great, ok so sure thanks a million. Good luck.

Gov : Eh actually, there's a wee bit more. Hang tough there for a second.

J: Wha?

Gov: Well, there's VAT.

J: What is that?

Gov: It's called Value Added, erm.... eh Tax.

J: Another tax? For what

Gov & J: To keep the country going.

J: OK, ok ok. what is it.

Gov: well this is a bit harder to quantify for you, but lets just say that nearly everything you buy includes a contribution to the state of 13.5% of it's price.

J: Wow. Ok. So if I spend €10 if my poor €58 that's left, €1.35 is going to the government?

Gov : Yep. To keep the country running. It's only fair really. Sure you don't *have* to buy 'stuff'. Like electricity or heating.

J : Hmm.

Gov : OK. And there's a just a couple of others. Water. Property. Vehicle. TV Licence.

J : What?

Gov. : Well yes, these services don't pay for themselves you know. Water costs money. Having your house sitting there in a county costs money. Roads cost money. Ryan Tubridy Costs money. It's not going to pay for itself you ingrate.

J : But Jaysus, what about the 41% tax, or the PRSI, or the USC or the VAT? I thought they were to keep the country running? And I have to pay to get my bin collected by a private company!

Gov : No no no, they're completely different, and any eejit can see you need to pay to get water, a road to drive on and Ryan Tubridy on your telly. I'm not sure what the property tax is for now to be honest.

J : Jaysus. It's a bit steep. But sure I suppose it's to keep the country running.

Gov : Good man.

J : Is that everything?

Gov : Yes. For now. Can't think of anything else, but come here, how much air do you think you breathe every day? Never mind.

J : What will I do with my 2 or 3 cent left over?

Gov : Put it in a bank. To keep the country running.

You must have a great jobeen to have the time for posting all that .....

I write as I speak. A matter of moments.

[magpie seanie]

We're getting done coming and going. The chestnut of saying we should be paying for water is ignoring the fact that we supposedly already ARE via the existing taxes. If they want to reduce our income tax, and then tax things like Property, Water or whatever based on usage, then fair enough. But its a ballix to pay twice for something.

As gerrykeegan said in the previous post taxes do not cover government expenditure, so you are not paying for everything. Now you can take an idealogical perspective and say that other taxes should be increased rather than charging for water, but alleging that you are paying twice makes no sense.

I explained my take on this above. It's fine to say we never paid for water until now, but I take that we are and do pay for it via PAYE and other taxes. If they need this money to pay for Water now, in addition to what we have already paid to cover the public cost of water, then in effect we are paying for it twice.

Well then, since there is a deficit which piece of expenditure do you wished removed so that your water can be paid for?

I would like to see efficiencies brought into the public sector which would see the high taxes we already pay used properly. It's unbelieveable really. We keep giving the government money, they keep f**king it away, and they keep coming back to us to give them more under a different guise. I realise I'm only bitching, and I do see the merit in paying for services, but I hate to see wastage, and that's what we are seeing all over the place.

And that's before you take into account the oceans of cash being sent to pay back loans/interest to keep the EURO currency afloat I mean "recapitalise the banks". Fcukin jokeshop.

[Billys Boots]

If we don't treat water provision as a service, how will we (or the clowns who are supposed to be running it) ever know what it costs to supply and maintain?  Jack Lynch should be shot with balls of his own shite, in fairness.

No problem with that. But just because I give you a tenner doesn't mean you can't tell me you spent €6 on food and €4 on newspapers. I would have thought the department of the environment, or finance, would be able to say exactly how much it costs to supply and maintain the water supply. I shouldn't have to give you another €2 in a different envelope to buy a doughnut because you can't figure out if you spent it as part of the €10 or not.

You're not ever going to be told because they don't know themselves.  When it was funded from the rates 'purse' they knew what it cost, but since the funding of local government came from the Depts of Finanace and Environment there has been a concerted effort at local level to 'mask' local spending with a view to getting as much as they can - the result is that we can't know what our local services ever cost; that's the real scandal.  The 'privatising' of waste services about 10 years ago removed this from the local purse with (on the whole) positive effects on our personal purses.  Did the funding of local services from the central pot drop? - not a penny.  I'm not arguing that such a scenario is right, but what it does mean that waste is not run on a costed basis, and our citizens are paying what it actually costs to provide the service, not some pie in the sky 'estimate' from someone hiding his ineptitude.

[AZOffaly]

Not sure I disagree with anything there. We're both saying the same thing I think.

[gallsman]

Was listening to Newstalk on the way home yesterday. I'm by no means an arch-capitalist but if Brendan Howlin thinks he deserves a pat on the back for reforming the public sector, he can f**k right off. He was challenged by Pat Kenny about creating more red tape and hoops for people to jump through when claiming back the rebate on their water charges. Filling out (incredibly confusing to the average Joe) tax self assessments when the vast majority of the country are PAYE etc.

So many simple efficiencies that could be brought in that they refuse to consider - as a renter in Dublin, I move relatively frequently. This year is the first time I renewed my lease. The only opportunity I have to update my car tax details online is at the point of renewal. Any other time I have to send my log book away to f**king Shannon via snail mail. The automation technology is already in use in the department but they won't f**king extend it and end up creating more red tape and keeping people in redundant jobs. Better yet, scrap motor tax altogether and factor it into the price of fuel. Much f**king simpler.

[Mayo4Sam]

AZ, you are describing the water services as they are as if they were some kind of cohesive system.

It's not, the problem with the water services is that it's maintenance was funded through county rates, the county council had no incentive to maintain the system because it cost them money. Instead they let the system fall into ruin at which point the dept of environment would fund a refurb.
So we were never taxed centrally for this, environment had an ad hoc funding mechanism for it, surely you can see this is highly ineffective and that a central body with a ring fenced funding and a good background in network development will be infinitely more efficient.

It's the exact same arrangement as the gas and elec network, people and industry pay a pro-rata charge for usage based on their throughput. People don't complain about it because that's the way it's always been.

As someone said, there's lots to be complaining about, this isn't one of them

[AZOffaly]

AZ, you are describing the water services as they are as if they were some kind of cohesive system.

It's not, the problem with the water services is that it's maintenance was funded through county rates, the county council had no incentive to maintain the system because it cost them money. Instead they let the system fall into ruin at which point the dept of environment would fund a refurb.
So we were never taxed centrally for this, environment had an ad hoc funding mechanism for it, surely you can see this is highly ineffective and that a central body with a ring fenced funding and a good background in network development will be infinitely more efficient.

It's the exact same arrangement as the gas and elec network, people and industry pay a pro-rata charge for usage based on their throughput. People don't complain about it because that's the way it's always been.

As someone said, there's lots to be complaining about, this isn't one of them

You're missing the point. We paid money for public services including Water. This is what our taxes are for. The fact that this money was wasted, or spent inefficiently is my issue with it.

Now we are getting a body specifically set up to handle this, that's good. Unfortunately we are having to pay ADDITIONAL monies for this body to operate, rather than being able to simply allocate the requisite funds from the public coffers, as we would be able to do if there was any proper accounting going on.

It's an absolute disgrace that the government cannot say, 'we have allocated €600 million from the central coffers for the provision of water, and this will be run under the auspices of Irish Water'. Instead they are saying 'We're keeping the money ye thought ye were paying for public services, but we've squandered because we haven't a clue how we spent it, and now ye have to pay extra for this service'.

[lynchbhoy]

....and no delivery of a fully efficient service despite increased taxes on it....

[magpie seanie]

Just wait until Irish Water get going. I've (unfortunately) had dealings with them already and lets just say they were less than satisfactory. The clown that left Sligo County Council in millions of debt (former County Manager) walked into a big job there (I have heard it said that he is/was the right political colour). His track record in Sligo would suggest nothing but a catastrophe. His time as county manager descended into complete farce.

[armaghniac]

You're missing the point. We paid money for public services including Water. This is what our taxes are for. The fact that this money was wasted, or spent inefficiently is my issue with it.

Now we are getting a body specifically set up to handle this, that's good. Unfortunately we are having to pay ADDITIONAL monies for this body to operate, rather than being able to simply allocate the requisite funds from the public coffers, as we would be able to do if there was any proper accounting going on.

It's an absolute disgrace that the government cannot say, 'we have allocated €600 million from the central coffers for the provision of water, and this will be run under the auspices of Irish Water'. Instead they are saying 'We're keeping the money ye thought ye were paying for public services, but we've squandered because we haven't a clue how we spent it, and now ye have to pay extra for this service'.

What you are losing sight of here is that Irish people in general have not been paying enough to run the government services since the mid 90s, the services were being substantially funded by stamp duty etc raised from borrowed money. While there are real issues with efficiency, the taxes collected are simply not sufficient to provide all the services, especially those like water that are charged for elsewhere.

[Mayo4Sam]

But the point is that there was no cohesive plan or spend on water prior to this, it's new!

As for Magpies point, I would say that every kind of shite has been thrown into Irish water, from what I know you have a good crew from Bord Gais that are used to managing large scale development projects and then you have every useless operational f**ker with long service and huge pension gone in from Bord Gais and the local authorities. It will take a lot to sort that out, apparently very frustrating for the good people that are in there.

Magpie, much as you'd like to use appointments to beat FG, I honestly believe that there were no political appointments in IW but rather an off loading but local authorities, if ur man is as useless as you say then you have your answer, someone bright in Sligo Co Co saw an opportunity to get rid