Joe Higgins (Dublin West, Socialist Party)

Yes, but as I will show in the limited time available, the suggestion is that water is free and, therefore, having it supplied to our homes without a specific tax or charge on it means we will wantonly waste it. That is always the subtext for saying we must have direct water charges. I reject that.

The explanatory memorandum states the Bill deals with management of water in the pipe from abstraction to discharge as treated waste water. I am bitterly disappointed with the lack of any originality in the Bill in respect of the significant measures that could be taken with regard to conservation and avoiding the waste of huge amounts of pure drinking water. Section 53 states a person who wilfully wastes or permits wastage of any water supplied by a water services authority is guilty of an offence, but the Department of the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, the Government and local authorities throughout the country are guilty of standing over the wastage of huge amounts of pristine drinking water.

For example, they could prescribe building regulations, and I want the Minister to reply to this at the end of the debate, that would ensure design of water systems in homes and other premises which could save massive amounts of drinking water on an annual basis. It is incredible that a single flush of a toilet to remove a fraction of a litre of waste liquid water wastes gallons of pure drinking water because of the huge capacity of toilet systems. Other countries have a dual flush system to remove liquids and greater amounts to reduce solids. In my estimation a simple measure such as the modification of toilet systems alone, and in Dublin alone, would conservatively save at least 500 million gallons, or 1.5 billion litres, of pristine drinking water each year. I preached that seven or eight years ago when I was elected to the Dáil, and before that in the local authorities. It is a massive dereliction of duty that nothing has been done. I am so frustrated I put an object about a litre size in my own toilet system as a personal saving measure but personal gestures are not what is needed. Similarly, in regard to the design of buildings, rain tanks in every home would save hundreds of millions of gallons of water that is wasted in gardens, washing cars and so on.

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