31 thoughts on “De Tuesday Papers

  1. Eoin

    Looks like we need to erect a big red plague cross across the entire country according to the front page of the Irish World.

    Four dead from swine flu. Hundreds hospitalised. The trolley figures which had been mercifully low over the mild Christmas are now almost back at last year’s record levels. This year’s flu strains appear to be targetting everyone from the young and healthy to the pregnant to the elderly. It seems to me to be far more widespread than in recent years. Many people I know have had a mild flu, cold, sneezing, runny nose, bit of joint pain. It’s the people who have high temperatures, diarrhea and vomiting that need to get themselves to a doctor or A&E.

    1. Eoin

      583 on trolleys today up 5% from the 555 on the same date in 2018, the flu season and winter trolley crisis is truly upon us. And I’m dying here myself with what I hope is just a mild version of the flu. A&E departments must be chaotic with people vomiting their guts out and emptying their bowels.

  2. Giggidygoo

    So, how would IW know that 10% of lost water is due to illegal connections? If they know that, then wouldn’t that suggest they know where the connections are?
    Smacks of complete bull. Maybe they should dedicate their High Tech (ROFL) abilities to fixing the leaks. Then again, what would a crowd of pen pushers,and data input merchants know about the water system – it’s the county councils that have the knowledge.
    Of course wh know that the attempt of reintroduction of water charges is upcoming, so prepare for weekly bull stories about IW.
    These stories will not take the pressure off the boys Varadkar, Coveney, Harris and Murphy though. Health and Housing and Brexit.

    1. SOQ

      And that is the whole point, the councils don’t know either. There is no national geo-database of the network let alone connections, they don’t even know how many are on private water schemes. Just think of the health implications of that alone.

      That is not the fault of this government but chronic under investment for decades. If the same amount of EU money had been pumped into water as roads, it would now be a very different story.. And no, I am not justifying metering because that was, and is, a complete waste of time on a network with such leaks.

      1. bisted

        …in mid-1990s Dublin Corporation commissioned a thorough study of the water network in Dublin. They used a company called Hyder which was the Engineering Consultancy arm of Welsh Water. The true extent of leakage in the system was exposed and made headlines at the time…the report* was subsequently ignored…
        *the report included a survey of the existing network with the results displayed in a GIS database…

        1. SOQ

          Correct but the real problem is the variance in record management within the councils. As things stand, It is so great that it is near impossible to setup a national asset system.

          IMO that should have been the core objective of Irish Water, rather than the political footballing they engaged in, and subsequently lost. Of course the councils never wanted to give the information in the first place.

      2. Giggidygoo

        Exactly. The councils though would at least have the knoweledge of previous flash points though. But this thing of issuing press releases full of ‘high tech’ etc. when IWs nothing of the sort is easily seen through.

      3. SB

        Surely the meters serve a vital purpose in being able to pinpoint where leaks (or illegal connections) roughly are…say there are 2000 branches of pipeline, each taking 1,000 litres of water (as measured by an “uber-meter”). If, on one branch, there are 8 houses connected using 100 litres each (according to the metres), then it’s easy to say that there are 200 litres missing for one reason or another, compared to another branch where a similar 8 x 100l houses only use a total of 800 litres.

        ?

        1. SOQ

          No. The meters may identify a small percentage of the leaks on private property but are at the point of consumption, not monitoring the network. Even then, meters could never give the total consumed because of the way in which most apartment blocks were plumbed.

          This isn’t rocket science. The technology is available to map the network AND identify major leaks, without digging even one hole in the ground. Get on with it.

          1. Boules

            There are also thousands of bulk meters and sub-meters for monitoring consumption and leakage. The network is divided into districts, each one is metered. Spikes in consumption indicate leaks in the network.

    2. scottser

      ‘it’s the county councils that have the knowledge.’
      IW contract the local authority systems to do the technical work under a long term SLA. The staff doing that work are either LA under contract or IW but former LA.

    3. Rob_G

      “Maybe they should dedicate their High Tech (ROFL) abilities to fixing the leaks.”

      Before water meters, there was no way of checking for leaks at household level, they just had to guess. A leak on this fellow’s property was leaking a few million litres of water a year, and it could never have been discovered without the introduction of water meters. And that was from just one leak; think of all of the water that will have been conserved if even a few more leaks like that are repaired.

      1. GiggidyGoo

        I read that just now. The reaction of IW and its contractors..,..well, what reaction? A leak like that was discovered and Messrs. High Tech IW did what, quickly? Nothing!

        1. Rob_G

          Well, I’m sure it has been fixed by now; p oint being, there is no way to detect leaks or abnormal usage other than by water meters

          1. SOQ

            Abnormal usage is a very small part of the overall leaks and did not under any circumstances justify the expense of meter installations. That decision was made by politicians, not engineers..

          2. SOQ

            And what percentage is house hold consumption of the overall production?

            I am not getting into the meter thing again apart from saying that if the full cost was known, including the resurfacing of many streets and roads afterwards, people would be shocked. Scandalous waste of money.

  3. bisted

    …call me sceptical but, how did the judge know that those dogs shot in Mallow were christians?

    1. small ads

      They were responded to Jesus’ call, “Feet [on] my lambs, feed [on] my sheep, for many are culled but few are chosen”.

    1. Starina

      And in India they’re trying to say that their ancient gods had airplanes and discovered stem cell research.

    2. Cathal

      I thought NASA more or less admitted that Stanley Kubrick staged the moonlanding for them. There are those who claim that he drops hints to this throughout “The Shining”. I used to believe it happened but now I have doubts.

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