Kevin Myers: If Phil Hogan is the tough guy of Government, what can we expect when we meet the wimp?
Phil Hogan, the hard chaw of this Government, the politician with a buffalo's spine and a tiger's teeth, the man who takes no nonsense or prisoners, as Minister for the Environment recently announced the ¿50 charge for the registration and inspection of all septic tanks.
These measures to protect our water table not surprisingly caused anger and dismay from people who are not used to such innovative taxes. And what did the minister do next? Why, revealing the spine of plankton, the teeth of seaweed and the courage of a tadpole, he duly folded.
And this is the tough guy of the Government. Jesus Christ: what happens when we meet the wimp? Does he give us the deeds to his house, plus his wife and a sister or two? And is it any wonder that with negotiating skills like these at the head of government, the Irish taxpayer is repaying the German banks for their insanely reckless investments in Anglo Irish Bank? The only wonder is that we haven't also agreed to pay the German reparations to the victims of the Third Reich. That's probably the next step.
Now, I write this as the owner of a septic tank (and also of a 360-foot deep well). The minister announced the original ¿50 fee for the registration of septic tanks as a consequence of a European Court of Human Justice ruling that Ireland had broken EU law for failing to enact laws dealing with domestic water waste. Of course, any new tax is going to cause unhappiness. That's life. As a politician who imposes it, you just have to take the blows that follow; but not Phil Hogan, the bruiser and enforcer of this Government. For barely had the protests begun than he announced the ¿50 charge would be abandoned and replaced by a ¿5 registration fee (the processing of which will certainly cost the State far more than it takes in). But what matter, if the minister's constituents are kept happy? Is that not the job of a democratically accountable politician?
And the answer to that daft question is no: the job of a democratically accountable politician is to govern fairly and well, to be accountable to all sections of the electorate rather than that section of it which elected him, and to maintain and protect the common values and law of society overall.
One of the central and defining ingredients to any modern society is the anticipation and prevention of environmental problems before they occur -- or it is everywhere else in Europe. But not so in the land which gave us an Irish solution to an Irish problem, and GUBU, and nuclear decontamination pills, and the Red Cow Roundabout, and two unconnected Luas lines, and driving licences that were issued automatically to people who had thrice-failed their test, and which now proposes septic-tank inspections ONLY AFTER CONTAMINATION OF THE WATER has occurred. Yes: that is the advice being given out by the minister. Inspections will be "targeted": that is, once water has been contaminated -- but only then -- will local tanks be inspected to find the source.
The minister said: "I don't expect that the (inspection) scheme will be expensive . . . because the local authority staff will receive training from the Environmental Protection Agency."
Really; and which EPA would this be? The one that a departmental audit a year ago found was already in danger of being under-resourced and undermanned, even before the recent early retirements from the public service?
The minister added that he wanted to avoid a repeat of the cryptosporidium outbreak which left Galway without fresh water for three months in 2007. And how does he propose to do that? By introducing an inspection regime that will only respond after the next outbreak has occurred. The folly of such non-proposals is matched only by the absence of any criticism from rural TDs in response -- though of course, it is rural communities that will be most affected when the water table is contaminated, as it will inevitably be if all septic tanks are not properly inspected and rigorously maintained.
The moral frivolousness of our political classes on this has -- naturally -- been matched by the Irish Farmers' Association, which instantly reverted to its atavistic, insatiable grants-claiming mode; its president, John Bryan, called for "a retrofit grant scheme for those who will have to upgrade their tanks". But relax! For this will only happen once someone has just destroyed the local water table with E. coli.
And from Fianna Fail, of course, we also heard calls for grants. To be paid for by whom, please? Ah, now, I DO know the answer to that question, as to all such questions these days: by our grandchildren, the ones who will pay for the sinful Croke Park deal, for the golden handshakes and pensions of all those public servants taking early retirement, and who -- lucky bastards! -- will one day inherit a water table permanently infested with toxic, anaerobic bacteria. Why? Because Phil Hogan, "hard man", did do not do what legal, environmental and moral considerations now oblige him to do: to introduce a mandatory, universal, self-financing registration and inspection regime for all septic tanks.
