Billy Timmins (Wicklow, Fine Gael)

I commend the motion to the House. Flushing toilets would not be my favourite subject, if I had to pick a topic. Some people say a lot of rubbish is spoken in this House, but a lot of sense comes from this side of the House. I do not know if there is a prism somewhere in the vicinity of the Ceann Comhairle's chair, but when it filters through that prism very little seems to get through to the Government.

I commend Deputy Hogan on proposing this policy. Regardless of what body is established to manage water, there needs to be accountability. This time last year we wanted the NRA to centralise salt supplies. When we had the centralisation of salt supplies this winter the NRA would not give it to the local authorities to grit the secondary roads. What good is faith without good works? What good is responsibility without accountability?

I commend the great work carried out by local authority workers. Many houses and public buildings suffered considerable damage during the period. Every household should have a simple mechanism for turning off the water. The vast majority of people do not know how and where to turn off their water. All public buildings should have a switch. I know of schools that were destroyed with ceilings collapsing over the period. If they had a little switch at the door, when they are heading off for the Christmas holidays they could knock it off and thereby save considerable Exchequer funding on repairs.

Shortly in Government we hope to introduce proposals to install a mechanism allowing the water to be heated to deal with a decrease in temperature. I understand it costs €70 or €80 to install such a mechanism, which would alleviate considerable difficulties.

I heard Deputy Connaughton suggest that there should be a water meter outside every house. I would argue that there should be a water meter inside every house because at the moment water meters are outside business premises and the owners will not pay their water charges because they have no confidence in the mechanism of charging. They do not know where the leak is - if there is a leak; and they do not know how to read the water meter - people will not go out on their hands and knees with a torch lifting up a manhole on the side of the road shining down the torch trying to work out what is beneath them. Why can we not have meters in the house as we have ESB meters?

Without a system in which people have confidence, they will not pay their bills. Every local authority should hold seminars outlining to people in business how they are charged for water and how they can check if they have a leak. Various private enterprises installed meters a short while ago and most businesspeople do not really care about it. They do not want to know about it because ultimately they feel they will not be pursued by the local authority because the system is chaotic, which needs to be addressed.

Unlike our colleagues in Connacht, in Leinster we are very generous. As the Leas-Cheann Comhairle knows we supply water from Wicklow to Dublin and we get lots in return from the capital - we get a lot of its waste back in return. We take that and we are glad to take it. The water systems in Wicklow that supply Dublin are in danger of collapse. They have been in place since the 1860s or 1870s and considerable funding is required to get them up to scratch. I commend the motion to the House and I hope the next Government will introduce the measures outlined.

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