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THE CONTROVERSIAL SEMI-STATE has something of a reputation problem at home – but things are a little different in the US, apparently.
At least in certain circles.
The fact that Irish Water picked up an award at a lavish corporate ‘do’ in California made the front-page of the Irish Sun this morning.
And while it’s fair to say that that a bit of industry back-slapping involving any other Irish semi-state wouldn’t merit quite so much attention – it’s still little odd to hear the troubled utility spoken about in such glowing terms on the international stage.
What’s the award for?
The ‘Enterprise Award’ was presented by Jack Dangermond, founder of a company called Environmental Systems Research Institute, which is a major international supplier of mapping software.
In a ceremony at the San Diego Convention Center, it was presented to Irish Water programme manager Paul Ahern for his swift implementation of a GIS [geographic information system] – a system designed to capture, store and manage various types of geographic data.
Introducing his guest, Dangermond talks up Irish Water for “shining a light on best practices” in the industry.
“I’m giving this award because Paul is a person who in one year implemented a complete GIS for their entire organisation for the entire country starting from scratch.”
He continues:
This guy is a hero by any measure.
Ahern says the company has been on a ”tremendous journey with Esri” and that he’s accepting the gong on behalf of “everybody involved in setting up Irish Water”.
When we were asked by the government to establish Irish Water we had three challenges: we had very little time, we had no data, and we had very high customer expectations.
Working with Esri’s Irish team they ”overcame those challenges” he says.
Ending their on-stage interaction, Dangermond notes that former Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley – an Irish-American, not to mention a candidate for the Democratic nomination in the 2016 White House race – is in the audience, and suggests (light-heartedly) that he and Ahern should have a chat.
Further reading…
This is what Esri had to say about the award for Irish Water, in the promotional bumf on its website:
Irish Water is the new national water utility responsible for providing and developing water services throughout Ireland. Incorporated in July 2013, as a semi-state company under the Water Services Act 2013, Irish Water will bring the water and wastewater services of its 31 Local Authorities together under one national service provider. To do so, the utility consolidated its operations onto a single GIS platform, Esri’s ArcGIS. The consolidation took 12 months. In the first month and a half, Irish Water was able to meter more than 1.3 million homes.
It attributes the following quotes to Ahern:
“We have all water assets for the whole country in a single geodatabase.”
“To trade and analyze information off this single source is a huge benefit.”
The press material continues:
More than 2,000 users currently access the national geodatabase across departments in asset management, operations, workflows, capital investments, strategic planning, and customer services.This means Irish Water will be better able to deliver water services, including increasing access to potable water.The purpose of Irish Water is to safeguard water as a precious natural resource and to deliver water services in a way that protects the environment and meets the needs of all citizens and industry now and in the future.
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Best of luck to him , I will always have great respect for Hugo Chavez for trying to be a president for the common man and for sending the yank vultures and their puppets packing .
Absolutely 100% agree with you. Any one in any doubt should google John Pilgers documentary, the war on democracy. Chavez is a man of the people that big business want to see the back of.
Great documentary by Oliver Stone about Chavez “South Of The Border” worth a watch, tells how the US tried and failed to bring him down. Great interviews with him and other South American leaders about their refusal to be governed by US policy, it’s an eye opener.
Best wishes to him. He’s an inspiration.
don’t know much about Chavez,
but the fact that extreme right-wing yanks seem to hate him, makes me think he’s ok.
anyway – hope he defeats his cancer.
There is a very real possibility that his cancer was deliberately induced by the US military industrial complex in my opinion.
seriously? bit too much conspiracy perhaps?
Not really Simon. The CIA tired similar stuff with Fidel down the years.
They tried to give him cancer?
How do you give somebody cancer?
Exactly..
I can selectively quote parts of a random article from the internet too, first line under the heading… “Can you give someone cancer? If they’re healthy probably not”.
You want me to copy and paste entire articles here?
The point – and it’s embarrassingly obvious – is that while nobody knows whether his cancer was deliberately induced, it’s a possibility and a reasonable suspicion given the various ways the US tried to murder Fidel Castro down the years.
ha you quoted one part of an article to suit your own agenda! The US are capable of most things, so if they wanted rid of him I’m sure they could find a more effective way then giving him cancer, which your article goes onto say is a highly unreliable way of assassinting someone.
It’s highly unreliable yea but very discrete , I know it’s what I’d do it can’t be traced
A dose of radiation sufficient to appreciably increase cancer risk would undoubtably cause acute radiation sickness (about 3 to 5 sieverts).
Then, if the exposed person survives radiation sickness, there would be a ~10 year latency period before there’s an increased risk of Leukaemia, then if they don’t get Leukaemia, another 10 to 20 years would pass before there’s an increasing chance of solid cancers.
The maximum increase chance of cancer from radiation is ~40%, the risks are not higher as the exposed person would more likely die from radiation sickness at higher doses, they wouldn’t survive to get cancer years later.
Do you have a source for that, David?
Studies of the Mortality of Atomic Bomb Survivors, Report 14, 1950–2003: An Overview of Cancer and Noncancer Diseases
The Japanese Life Span study is the gold standard, 130,000 atomic bombing survivors monitored since the mid-1950s, since Japanese doctors started to notice increased cases of leukaemia.
The Excess Relative Risk per Gray (roughly the same as a Sievert) is 0.42, since the baseline cancer rate is ~30%, this gives a cancer rate of 42.6% for 1 Gray dose.
For an additional increase of 40% (30+40%)= 70% cancer rate, the radiation dose would need to be massive, undoubtably accompanied with severe radiation sickness.
Where is that’s documentary pls love to see it
Here’s a great one filmed by two Irish reporters, they were in the Chavezs’ office when the coup happened. They stayed behind, when Chavez and his ministers fled; they said they wanted to film the revolution happening. They got both sides from the inside, it’s a real eye opener, an excellent documentry:
Venezuela has one of the most democratic systems in the world.
Here’s what former US President Jimmy Carter of the Nobel Prize-winning election monitoring Carter Center had to say about it:
“Of the 92 elections that we’ve monitored, I would say that the election process in Venezuela is the best in the world.”
All Venezuelan expatriates get a vote. Those people are likely to vote for the opponents of Chavez, yet he still gives them the vote.
The people of Venezuela keep voting for Chavez, because he is of them.
It’s amazing that just because Chavez has stood up to the United States people make him out to some kind of hero. He presides over a massively corrupt country, which usually happens when one man resides in power way beyond what is healthy for any supposedly democratic country.
He keeps getting elected. Pesky democracy!
Because he has made it easier and easier for him to get elected. Himself and Putin have a lot in common.
At least he’s not owned and operated by Goldman Sachs, like BOTH of the selected candidates in the USA’s farcical overture to democracy.
That article doesn’t even back you up. Anybody that knows anything about cancer knows you can’t give somebody cancer.
Are you pretending to be dim or does it come naturally. Read. The. Comments. Again… S l o w l y !
I agree its unlikely but to rule if out is daft , best way to kill someone is to make it look like an accident.
Petr no need to get upset because you were wrong
Exactly, Kevin. Quite a simple point to grasp really.
A large dose of dioxins will induce cancer in most people. There are many carcinogenic compounds that can be administered covertly in food. It’s not science fiction
No, the amount of Dioxin required to greatly increase cancer risk would cause obvious symptoms – Chloracne. Just look at what happened to Viktor ‘s Yushchenko’s face after he was poisoned by Dioxin.
Caracas is one of the most dangerous places on earth. I suspect Damascus would be safer. Roaring inflation and shortages makes his rule not much of a success. It would be possible to have clinics in slums areas without wrecking the economy. He or his heir won’t be able to buy support for much longer.
I wish Mr Chavez all the best and I admire what he has done for working people in his country and the region. For too long the United States have treated South America as their own private plantation.
have your say