Veolia, the world’s largest player in the privatised water industry is spotted in Thurles sharing a van with an Irish Water logo.

Many might find it curious, that a company which controversially supported everything from Apartheid in Israel to union busting in America, is operating in Ireland. In fact Veolia (forgetting about the LUAS) has the contract on 6 Public Private Partnership water projects for excess of €20m each in Kildare, Mayo, Donegal, Westmeath and Wicklow.

Veolia boast on their website about having:

“Installed in excess of 20,000 meters on behalf of our current clients Galway City Council, Sligo County Council and Roscommon County Council. We also operate and maintain the works which includes maintenance of all the meters and infrastructure, reading, billing, revenue collection, debt recovery and IT systems.”

The name Veolia carries huge baggage. Divestment and controversy follow them globally. Ruth Coppinger TD recently invoked them in a debate about Irish Water. She pointed to a survey Veolia carried out for DCC which estimated per person water usage at 148 litres daily. The government ignored this and chose Irish Water’s estimate of 98 litres.

The Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign have this document of Veolia’s illegal activities in Palestine too.

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