DaGaffer
Down With That Sorta Thing
- Joined
- Dec 22, 2003
- Messages
- 18,499
So how much does it cost per household per year?
Also, out of interest (not expecting you to be able to answer) is it less environmentally damaging than the privately owned equivalent?
For example: Two adjacent forests in mid-wales. One owned by Natural Resources Wales, other by a private company. Private owner was complaining to me that NRW wouldn't sell them their forest - despite them not making a profit on it, but him making a profit on his.
Problem is - he's an egregious corner-cutter in pursuit of his profit. I was with an environmental manager and an ecologist on a MTB ride in his forest at the time and they were pointing out repeated violations of environmental legislation that would have costs to remediate - which would directly eat into his profit.
Other side of the forest? Following the rules (doggedly, jobsworthy) because little profit motive.
That's how I see utilities tbh. (Like 30-40% of all our water is wasted because private companies have refused point blank to repair their pipes whilst profits roll out to shareholders). If you legislated to fix this, bills go up (because shareholders want their pound of flesh regardless - and if it was a loss making company they'd wind it up - an important mechanism you can't use with utilities.)
That means shareholder profits are being distributed not through value creation - but through simple skimming off the top of necessities.
It costs nothing (funding is via general taxation). This is in of itself environmentally problematic because there’s no financial incentive at the household level to control usage. There was an attempt a few years back to bring in water charges for exactly this reason and there was literally rioting in the streets (because some Taoiseach about thirty years ago promised there would never be water charges and the Irish will hold the State to that until the Sun turns nova because that’s how they roll), so the whole thing was abandoned.
The upshot is the water system is overstretched and underfunded (we’ve had two boil notices, days long at a time, in the last six weeks, that affected more than 10% of the entire population), and is certainly just as prone to questionable planning and environmental decisions as any private company, e.g. Major wastewater treatment plant gets go ahead in north Dublin despite local opposition