Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The idea that water is free is far from the truth. There is a huge cost to providing drinking water in houses, which somebody must pay. That somebody is the taxpayer. Regardless of what view one takes, water must be paid for by the taxpayer.

There are those who say one pays for it through VAT, income tax, corporation tax, excise duties and general taxation. That approach is irrespective of people's ability to pay and means one does not care if half the water is wasted. The ordinary poor person still must pay. The other alternative is to ask why, for example, a poor person should, through general taxation, pay for putting drinking water into a wealthy person's swimming pool. That is what the socialists are asking us to do. It is bizarre. Why should poor people be asked to pay for the profligacy and waste of people who cannot be bothered to mend the leaks in their houses or that occur between their front gate and their house?

If anybody thinks that the leaks issue in domestic properties is exaggerated, I can refer to a recent conversation I had with the director of services in Galway. He told me that when the council introduced farm metering, the scheme, which it had intended to expand and put more resources into because it could not cope with demand, suddenly became more than adequate for the demand. As soon as the farmers had to pay, all the leaks were mended and demand reduced by a huge percentage. This meant the possible investment being discussed could be put on the shelf because it was no longer needed.

The idea that water is free is ludicrous. The idea that in some way it helps the poor that they must pay for it every time they buy a pint or do anything else subject to general taxation is also ludicrous. They are paying for waste, something the taxpayer should not have to pay for in any circumstances. However, the free water allowance should be such that ordinary families who are careful should not pay for water. Furthermore, where there are special needs in a household, particularly where there are older people and people of low income, there should be a waiver to deal with such individual circumstances. The idea that one is somehow lifting a burden from the taxpayer by putting this under general taxation and allowing a high percentage of the water to flow into the ground, be wasted, used for swimming pools or wasted in other ways, is ludicrous and does not stand up to rational scrutiny.

There is one lesson we must learn in this country. No service is provided by the State or by the local authority that will not ultimately have to be paid for by the taxpayer. If one borrows in the short term, one is only deferring the evil day when one will eventually pay for it, and with interest.

Another issue I wish to raise with the Minister is one I was trying to tackle when I was in Government. There are people in this country who do not have access either to a good quality group scheme or to a public water supply. They are dependent on wells. The Minister's colleague, Deputy Michael Ring, is aware of a scheme in north Mayo, near Crossmolina, with which I was involved. There are many areas that do not have a public supply and the answer to that problem was through the CLÁR programme, as I was implementing it. It gave top-ups on the group water scheme grants in these rural areas to ensure people received a water supply. A sum of €3 million per year over and above the group water scheme grants would solve this problem once and for all.

It is a basic, fundamental right of every citizen in this country to have electricity, telecommunications, water and a road of decent quality to his or her house. There will be all sorts of arguments about cost benefit from the Department but I refer to the actual cost, over and above the existing group water schemes grant. I am delighted the Minister of State, Deputy Ring, is beside the Minister because outside the door he will tell the Minister that, although we have had our arguments in the past, Deputy Éamon Ó Cuív is correct on this point. The CLÁR scheme was solving this problem for once and for all, at a modest cost, for people who would be more than happy to pay for water every year if they could get decent, potable water into their houses rather than being dependent on wells.

A further problem has arisen for people in that, if a son or daughter wants to build a house next door and there is no group scheme or public water supply, the son or daughter must pay up to €4,000 to sink a bore before applying for planning permission. The application for planning permission might be refused after all that but if the pipe is running past the house, the person could get a letter from the county council or group scheme and receive planning permission. I ask the Minister to seriously consider the CLÁR grants, which were modest and worked. They achieved a national policy that all of us should agree on, that everyone in this State should be entitled to a water supply of high-quality going to a house or home, irrespective of where they live. The modern tendency to think services should only be provided in a agglomerated towns and cities is totally contrary to the traditional way we provided services in this country. It makes me run cold when I think of what might have happened if this modern attitude had prevailed when we decided to provide electricity around the country. I know what would have happened. Electricity would never have got to the huge areas of rural Ireland that benefited from it. There was a policy of basic services, irrespective of cost, being provided to all our citizens.

See this speech in context