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.

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A promotional photo for the Esri event.

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: