Mr. Feargal Ó Coigligh:

I thank Senator Fitzpatrick and Deputy McAuliffe for their questions.

On the first question about abstractions, hundreds of thousands of people around the country have domestic wells to abstract water. They are not directly affected by the Bill insofar as there is no requirement for households using that level of water to register. As the threshold is above 25 cu. m per day it will not bring in domestic water users but may include a number of smaller enterprises such as large dairy farmers, large hotels and some SME businesses that might use a fair bit of water.

The Irish Business Employers Confederation, IBEC, and the Irish Farmers Association, IFA, all have responded to the public consultation as well as environmental non-governmental organisations, NGOs, on what levels the controls should have an impact. There will not be a direct impact on the vast majority of private people or very small consumers. There is a provision for general binding rules, which just say that anybody abstracting water cannot or should not pollute and should watch the leakage but that should happen anyway. I do not see a very wide number of people being impacted. It is the larger abstractors of water that we are wishing to engage such as the IFA, NGOs, IBEC, the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Employment, etc. and they have engaged. There are further options to engage as we continue the legislative process. We will consider any views that the committee has or views that arise as we progress the legislation.

On the transparent operation of the licensing regime, the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA, will be the regulatory authority in this respect. As with all regulatory functions carried out by the EPA, it is very good with producing annual reports on everything that it does, in terms of transparency, registrations and identifying issues that might need to be addressed. There are provisions that allow elements of the regime to be amended by regulation. We, as a Department, keep very close contact with the EPA in that regard. I hope I have answered the question.