What should we do to ensure that our future has plenty of water?
Answers
The question posed to the speakers today is how we ensure a water supply to future generations in Ireland. Water services are a utility, i.e. a fundamental service that is needed to support the basic functioning of an economy and a society. I am an engineer by background, with 37 years experience running utilities in Ireland and internationally. So I can talk to you about the best utility engineering solution to deliver our water services for future generations. But as we have learned over the past two years, the provision of water services is not simply a utility engineering problem. This is an issue that raises fundamental questions of public policy.
Your preferred solution to delivering this utility service depends on the kind of society you want. There are big questions here about which products and services are seen in our society simply as goods to be bought and sold, and which are seen to be a human right, and therefore not simply to be traded in the marketplace.
And if something is deemed to be a human right – and to my mind access to clean water certainly is – then do we fund it through central taxation, or through user charges, or through a combination of both?
Water is also a finite precious natural resource. Like land, we are not making any more of it in the world. The total volume of water on our planet is fixed and exists in our oceans, rivers and lakes, and in frozen masses at the earth’s poles. We use and recycle water constantly on this planet of ours. So – how do we fund this utility service and how do we act responsibility in its use for today and for future generations? These are questions of national policy and it is for politicians to put forward their policy position, and then to persuade the public to support their view. I am glad I am here today with three politicians and I look forward to their thoughts on this with interest.
May I say that I am not a politician. My job is to run public utilities in line with government policy. So while I know the others on this evening’s panel hold strong views on Government policy in this area, I am not a Government representative. I will explain, and give account for, how well or otherwise we run our utilities in Ervia, but I don’t set government policy and so my role here is neither to defend nor to criticise it.
As we are becoming more modern and industrial day by day, we are constantly harming,polluting and moderating our mother nature.
Due to this modernization we are also constantly using our natural resources.If this humongous usage continues the natural resources will deplete soon in our future.
Water is one of the significant resources that will deplete soon in the near future.To prevent this:
1)using water carefully
2)not to waste or misuse water
3)harvest rain water
And many more...