Political World
Political pitch becomes ever muddier over water
World of Politics with Harry McGee – harrymcgee@gmail.com
My abiding childhood memory of winters in Galway was of parallel rain sheeting in from the bay over the Prom. There were few Irish records too in the Guinness Book of Records. One of them was that Ballinahinch in Connemara was the wettest place in the British Isles.
So if everything else failed in the world, water just did not seem to be an issue in Ireland.
But it is – on all kinds of levels; not just drinking water but also waste water and sewage.
There was a report in the paper that 43 urban centres in Ireland are still pumping raw sewage into the sea. One of those is Spiddal.
A decade ago there were reports in the paper saying that Spiddal was pumping raw sewage into the sea. Since than the situation hasn’t changed at all – except for one detail; Spiddal now is much bigger than it was then.
Besides those 43 urban centres there are countless places where there is waste treatment, where it isn’t good enough. And then there are countless smaller places where raw sewage is still being pumped where it should not be.
And that’s before we even get to drinking water.
It is true we get a lot of rain, but unlike other places, a surprisingly small percentage of it is absorbed and retained in wells – a lot of it runs off. For fresh water, we rely a lot on our river and lake systems, the big basins like the Shannon, the Liffey or the Corrib.
The pressures on the current system is close to breaking point. By 2050, the population along the East coast will have grown so much that an additional 330 million litres of water per day will be required, on top of the over 500 to 600 million litres being used daily now.
Dublin is quickly approaching desert city status. Its main source of water is the Liffey. But it is drawing so much on it now that the Liffey flow is only 40 per cent of what it should be.
The spare capacity of water in Dublin is eight per cent (compared to ten to 15 per cent in other European cities). If there’s a prolonged drought, the city’s going to be parched. That situation obviously can’t pertain into the future.
The obvious – if controversial – solution to extract water from the Lower Shannon at Parteen Basin and then pipe it to Dublin. The alternative is a very expensive desalination plan, using water taken from the Irish Sea.
On the other side of this, the quality of drinking water is comparatively good in Ireland generally but you are still getting boil notices operating in Roscommon, or really serious situations like the cryptosporidium outbreak in Galway a few years ago.
The bottom line with all of this is that huge investment is needed in water services over the coming decades. And no matter which way it happens, it’s ultimately the taxpayer who is going to foot the bill.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
Academically, politics is described as a science. But in the real world, it’s more of an art – and one of the big decisions a Government has to make is to decide when to call an election.
Will they see out the full term, or will they go early – either to mitigate the damage they will ship, or to secure a victory before things go awry, or the economy takes a dip, or some kind of controversy erupts?
Timing is everything.
And there’s a bit of art to that – not to mention a lot of luck. If you call it early and win big, you’re a genius. If you call it early and lose, you are the political version of the village fool.
Charlie Haughey was a poor judge of the public mood. Twice he called snap elections and on both occasions they backfired. Haughey succeeded Jack Lynch as Taoiseach in late 1979 and did not – technically – have his own mandate. He tried to remedy that by calling an election in 1981. But it recoiled. Ray MacSharry warned him not to hold it during the H Block hunger strikes when republican prisoners were dying each day. He did not listen to the advice and found himself out of office.
After his return to power in 1987, Haughey tired of presiding over a minority government that kept on losing votes in the Oireachtas (the opposition won nine private members motions).
So he called a snap general election and it backfired. Fianna Fáil lost seats and had to broker a coalition deal with the Progressive Democrats and his long-standing political adversary Dessie O’Malley.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
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World of Politics with Harry McGee
I was cycling down Mount Street in Dublin on Tuesday. It’s a wide esplanade that links the Grand Canal with Merrion Square. The street is a mixture of fine Georgian buildings and modern office blocks.
About half-way down is the office of the International Protection Office, which deals with asylum seekers who have arrived in the country.
Needless to say, the office has been overwhelmed in the past year. Besides an estimated 80,000 refugees who have arrived from Ukraine, there have been about 20,000 people from other parts of the world who have arrived into Dublin (mostly) claiming asylum.
The numbers peaked around Christmas, but they have been falling a little. In January, more than 1,300 people arrived seeking asylum but the numbers fell back to 831 and 858, in February and March respectively.
They are still huge numbers in a historical context.
So back to my cycle on Tuesday. I knew that some asylum seekers were camping outside the International Protection Office, but I was taken aback by how many. There were six tents lined up on the pavement directly outside. Then on the ramp that led down to the basement carpark on the side of the building, there were about another 20 tents.
It looked like what it was, a refugee camp in the middle of Dublin’s business district. If you pan out from Mount Street, you will find tents here and there in nearby streets and alleys. There were a good few tents in an alleyway off Sandwith Street about 500 metres away.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
World of Politics with Harry McGee
God that was a dramatic and historic weekend in England, wasn’t it? So much excitement, so much change, so much hype, so much out with the old and in with the new, and what looks like the coronation of a new leader. Yes, the local elections in Britain were something else weren’t they!
Apologies for not going on about King Charles III but the contract I signed when I became a lifelong republican forbids me to discuss the topic!
I know the British local elections sound a bit boring by comparison, but the results were stunning.
The Conservatives lost nearly 1,000 seats, the British Labour Party gained almost 500 and both the Lib Dems (with 350 gains) and the Greens (gaining over 200) also had amazing days at the polls.
It was Labour’s best day since 2002 but its victory was only partial. The Greens and the Lib Dems actually made gains at the expense of Labour in more affluent areas, and in parts of Britain where there were high numbers of graduates.
It was in the Red Wall constituencies in the North of England where the Labour recovery was strongest. These are working class constituencies with pockets of deprivation where people voted for the Labour Party forever. But all of those constituencies voted for Brexit and then voted for the Tories in the next general election. Labour is now winning back some of those votes.
Local elections are classified as second-tier elections which essentially means – from a national perspective – they are not life-or-death affairs, and not everything turns on them. Of course, it’s really important to have good local representation. But they are not an amazing weather vane for who rules the country.
For more, read this week’s Connacht Tribune.
Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App
Download the Connacht Tribune Digital Edition App to access to Galway’s best-selling newspaper.
Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
Or purchase the Digital Edition for PC, Mac or Laptop from Pagesuite HERE.
Get the Connacht Tribune Live app
The Connacht Tribune Live app is the home of everything that is happening in Galway City and county. It’s completely FREE and features all the latest news, sport and information on what’s on in your area. Click HERE to download it for iPhone and iPad from Apple’s App Store, or HERE to get the Android Version from Google Play.
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