Irish Water was set up in 2013 to introduce the most ambitious water metering programme in the world. The plan was to get Irish people to finally pay to upgrade a nineteenth-century water system.
The water metering programme began in August 2013 and was carried out at breakneck speed. However, it did not go to plan and the issue of water charges divided Ireland. There were nationwide demonstrations, and confrontations in housing estates involving water meter contractors, gardaí and water charge protesters.
The programme ended in political disaster, with a humiliated government having to send out one million refunds.
Sunday Bosiness Post political Editor Michael Brennan wrote a book on the subject called 'In Deep Water' and he Joined Joe Finnegan on Thursday's programme.
