Originally Posted by Donegal Planning Tribunal

In relation to the water, months ago it was stated that private well owners who had wells drilled would not have to pay and would not be liable...... Has Enda Kenny/Phil Hogan Changed this.Is this still the policy Of Donegal County Council (Seamus Neely)on above. Can you check this out tomorrow? and get back to me with i emailed minister environment office never got a reply back

I emailed the Dept of Environment last year on this and the reply stated that private well owners would not be liable for the metering and charges. It took a few months.

Of course, Kenny/Hogan keep going on about "every house in the country" being metered. The lack of clarity is (shall we say) irritating and doesn't instil any trust in this Gov't.

Originally Posted by DaveM

What are these capital projects? Seriously? Every sewage plant that gets built. Every water plant that gets built. Every pipe laying contract for sewers and watermains. They have loads of details on the DOE website and yes, the tenders do get published. All tendering for these projects is conducted in accordance with EU public procurement requirements.

"all tendering for these projects is conducted in accordance with EU public procurement requirements"
I presume you are involved in the in the civil service given your comments.

Let me ask you to consider another side I came up against:

a Dublin co co awarded a tender for supply of books to an UK wholesaler over a number of Irish tenders. The difference in the
tender value was 7,500€ between the Irish company and the UK company. The UK wholesaler is one of two only wholesalers in the
Uk from whom these books can be purchased so supply to the Irish companies come from these companies. The UK wholesaler gives the Irish companies set discount approx 30% and they have been trading with this wholesaler some 20 years yet this wholesaler who is the only means of purchase of these books as he holds the "rights" goes in for the tender at 42% discount and wins the tender.

On foot of the loss of this tender 6 people have lost their jobs that equates to approx 6 x 30K to the exchequer per annum 180K plus company exchequer returns.

Benefit to the council 7,500k verses 180K to the exchequer with likely pressure on other jobs. the Irish company can not tender in the Uk
as their is an embargo by way of a minimum of 5mil t/o

On a risk assessment this is false economics.

As for EU procurement requirements if we are going to use these by way of explanation then let us consider the other facts. I have average percentages a small degree for convenience.

Within the EU the highest tender per country seem to be between 14 -18% that go out for EU tender.

Malta, Luxenburg and Ireland all fall into the 14 -18% category with Ireland being number one in giving out tenders to "foreign" companies.

France, Spain and Poland three of the countries with the largest populations in the EU give out less than 1% .


To me it is pointless us applying strictly EU directives and holding this up as some marvelous goal we are achieving as good Europeans
when Europe doesn't even monitor and fine this appropriately. Nor does it make on iota of sense that we would apply regulation European or otherwise that has such a negative cost to the domestic exchequer.

We are so busy rushing to attend to the every whim of what Europe has laid down - that we don't risk assess. The civil service has let us down in this area badly and at a terrible cost. Whichever way you look at this this should have been flagged and actioned on by the civil service and not have to have businesses scream in the wind about this unfairness.

I don't understand the thinking of the body politic when they introduce policies that result in giving income away and still expect to be paid form the exchequer or borrow to pay their wages. There is a law of diminishing returns and on this one the civil service have ownership of it.