Arthur Morgan (Louth, Sinn Fein)

I support the three amendments tabled by Deputy Gilmore and look forward to hearing the Minister's reply. I suspect one of the reasons the Minister will not accept the amendments, although he may do so and it would strengthen the Bill, is that he is concerned about the consequences of doing so because, for example, the infrastructure is simply not in place to meet the requirements of any of them.

I will give a brief example. In the village from which I come, Omeath, County Louth, from June to September, approximately one third of homes in that village will not receive a water supply after about 2 p.m. or during peak times due to poor water pressure. The infrastructure is not in place. The local authority is making some effort to try to resolve the matter. If these amendments were accepted, I suspect the Minister would be concerned that the State would be opened up to all types of litigation etc. Perhaps that is the only excuse. This Government has had the wealth to put infrastructure in place — unfortunately, previous Governments did little as well, but this one is more culpable because it had the resources to deal with many of these cases.

Development is not permitted in the village because the sewage treatment capacity does not exist. At present there is a holding tank and twice a day as the tide goes out, the sewage is discharged into the waters of Carlingford Lough totally untreated. That is one step short of villagers going back three or four centuries when there was no tank and they peed directly into the lough.

Given the EU shell fish directive, we are leaving ourselves wide open to substantial fines. I am so frustrated lobbying to try to get the local authority to do something about the water and, in particular, the sewage treatment capacity that I am at the point of making a complaint to the European Commission about it. I have not done so as yet because I do not want us to incur the wrath or, in particular, bring on the fines of the European Commission. However, given the lack of movement, I am within weeks of doing so and I have already begun to prepare my complaint to the European Commission in this regard. This will probably be replicated in other areas. The State will incur the cost anyway so it would be much more efficient to deal with the issues and put infrastructure in place rather than plough money into paying EU fines.

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