Paudie Coffey (Fine Gael)

Regarding the report of the Commission to Inquire into Child Abuse, this has been a shameful chapter in Irish history. I agree all religious orders and the State acted in a shameful way and failed to protect our innocent children. It is better to approach this in a cross-party political way to try to achieve the recommendations in the report. That is how it should be addressed.

I support Senator O'Donovan's call for a debate on the new Common Fisheries Policy that will be implemented from 2012. The Leader well knows that fish stocks around the Irish coast have been decimated in recent years and fishing communities have seriously suffered. On the south coast alone, from Kilmore Quay to Castletownbere in west Cork, there are more than 3,200 jobs involved. More than 500 of those jobs are based in Waterford, in Dunmore East and Helvick Head in Dungarvan, where fishermen and their families have been struggling to keep their livelihoods. It is incumbent on all of us, because we are an island nation, to debate this issue in a timely manner to give full vent to the fishing industry, and politicians who represent them, to allow them to re-establish fishing as one of the main indigenous industries in this country and in Europe. I fully support Senator O'Donovan in that call.

Regarding the oceans, I note the EPA report on water quality around our coasts which states that in the Fingal area, four out of six beaches failed tests for bathing quality water, which is a shameful indictment of water treatment systems. One beach in Ardmore in County Waterford, which has always been a blue flag beach, has, unfortunately, also failed the bathing quality test. Ardmore is one of seven villages in County Waterford that have applied to the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government for a foreshore licence for a new sewage treatment plant. This has been an issue for seven years as it has been tied up in all kinds of bureaucracy.

Last week, in Cappoquin in County Waterford, the fire service and emergency services were called out because sewage was coming up through manholes on to public streets. This is the environment we are living in as a modern society because we have failed to invest and to remove the bureaucracy that allows essential infrastructure such as this to be developed. I ask the Leader to allow a debate on essential infrastructure in our local authorities and how we can support them. All the necessary plans are in place and all the applications have been made, but they are held up in the Department through bureaucracy and lack of funding. That is why the water quality in this country is as bad as it is.