Fórsa has received acknowledgement from Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage, Darragh O’Brien, that there will be no forced transfer of staff to Irish Water. 

In a meeting with unions last week, the Minister confirmed his position that, in the context of a wider overarching agreement on water sector transformation being put in place, local authority staff will not be required to transfer to Irish Water. 

The union has said that any staff transfer arrangements under the five-year plan for Irish Water must be voluntary. The minister reaffirmed that any agreement brokered at the Workplace Relations Commission (WRC) would facilitate voluntary transfer to the national utility.

The Minister also confirmed that local authorities will no longer have staff involved in the delivery of public water services beyond the end of 2026, and that local authorities will have fully exited the provision of public water services by that time. 

Based on a voluntary transfer system, this would give a five-year window to enable a planned transition of staff.

Referendum
At the meeting, the union also discussed a referendum on the public ownership of water services, and received the Minister’s support for it along the lines proposed by the union. The minister told union representatives that a future referendum would best be held in conjunction with any referendum on the right to housing in the Constitution. 

The Commission on Housing, which has recently been established, has been specifically tasked with advising the Government on this matter.

Fórsa first raised concerns in relation to delays on proposals for a constitutional referendum at the WRC meeting in December 2019. The minister at the time, Eoghan Murphy, wrote to the unions indicating that a referendum would be held in the first half of 2020.

In previous WRC discussions, Fórsa has sought movement on four strands broad strands:

• The structure and governance of the proposed single water utility
• Employment and industrial relations issues that arise from the proposal
• The need for a constitutional referendum on public ownership of water services, to assuage fears that the creation of a single authority is a precursor to the eventual privatisation of water services, and
• The future sustainability and revitalisation of local authority services.

Meanwhile, work is continuing on the drafting of a Water Service Separation Bill 2021 to provide for the separation of Irish Water from the Ervia Group. The union suggests that the legislation should give explicit reference to the State “authority” nature of the company, and that this should be considered further as the drafting of the Bill proceeds.

The head of Fórsa’s local government division, Dessie Robinson explained, “the confirmation from the Minister on the four strands will enable the group of unions to re-engage in Intensive negotiations under the auspices of the Workplace Relations Commission.”

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