Joe Dalton (interesting things on his blog …) recommended to me Michael Brennan’s book, describing the debacle of Irish Water's attempts to bring in direct user charges following the implementation of a massive, and impressively rapid, household metering programme. Recommended reading, though understandably a little too much focus on the details and personalities of Irish politics for an outsider WASH reader. I responded to Joe: I think I would summarise my thoughts through my current understanding that we have to admit that utility institutional change has to be measured in decades rather than years. Except that people like me keep accepting work in projects which expect the change to happen within a few years…….