James Bannon (Longford-Westmeath, Fine Gael)

I thank my colleague, Deputy Hogan, for bringing this motion before the House. It is an indictment of the lack of positive action on the part of the Government to deal with the repercussions of recent severe weather conditions. It is a year since the last winter crisis but in the intervening 12 months, nothing has been done to prevent a recurrence of the mayhem it caused. In Dublin alone not 1 km of mains has been replaced in that time. The failure to replace substandard water mains has left the country once again at the mercy of severe weather conditions, with people forced to endure the misery of a Christmas period without essential water supplies. The country effectively has been brought to its knees as householders, businesses and schools experienced the ill-effects of that inaction by the Government. It seems everybody but the Government knows that freezing conditions are eventually followed by a thaw and, once again, it was not prepared.

In my own constituency of Longford-Westmeath, demand for water exceeded supply by as much as 50% in certain areas over the Christmas period, according to Longford County Council. Water levels in the county's reservoirs decreased on account of frozen and burst pipes, with a subsequently enforced curtailment of supply to local businesses and homes. One disgruntled home owner observed that it is a total disgrace in the 21st century that we have to queue for water when this was never the case during harsh winters in the past.

The water shortage can in part be attributed to leaks in private properties, typically occurring in vacant houses and industrial and retail units. These are the ghosts of the Celtic tiger. That is the nub of the matter - it is another example of the burden imposed on us by the greed of speculators, developers and the Government, which saw residential and industrial estates thrown up without proper regulation and in a piecemeal fashion, for dubious tax returns. Building regulations from the late 1970s supposedly required that all services be protected from weather conditions, with the pipes to all new properties to be laid to a minimum of 600 millimetres below ground. In many cases these requirements were not met in the scramble to develop new estates, and householders have suffered the consequences.

There has been huge anger at the hardships householders have had to endure. The already struggling service industry has faced another serious drop in business. Bars, restaurants, and hairdressers have been particularly hard hit, with business owners not receiving a reliable supply in return for their water rates. It is scandalous that these problems have arisen not merely as a result of seasonal weather conditions. At the best of times, nearly half the water supply from our reservoirs is leaked through pipes that are not fit for purpose and subsequently lost to users.

Water supply will be the major planning issue of the 21st century. While inward investment is the life blood of any locality and hard fought for by local authorities, a casual attitude to planning - on a build now, think later basis - will continue to be a recipe for disaster. Water infrastructure must come first with the rest to follow, rather than the other way around. Good quality drinking water and the means to treat sewage effectively are essential to the commencement of any building development. As we have seen in parts of the country, the pace of development escalated to the point where common sense and basic health and safety standards were left behind.

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