Robert Dowds (Dublin Mid West, Labour)

I thank Deputy Lyons for sharing time.

I would like to make four practical points, but I will not get into the general debate. I ask the Minister to note that one area in which we can tackle the water problem is our usage of toilets. In any household, toilets are probably the things that use the most water. I looked up the figures before I came to the House, and found that a toilet uses between 6 and 13 litres of water with every flush - I dare say most Irish toilets are at the upper end of that scale. If people were encouraged to install toilets that use less water, that would be one important way to conserve water.

I ask the Minister to consider, when meters are being installed, a system of rewarding people who install them on their own initiative. If there is any way of using untreated water for toilet systems, that might help with expenses. I appreciate there may be difficulties with this, but it might be worth examining whether water collected from roofs, for example, could be linked with toilets. People have traditionally collected rain water in barrels and so on, and the more we can make use of this the better. I know some work is being done on this by a company in Carlow and probably others.

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