Pearse Doherty (Donegal South West, Sinn Fein)

I hope he will be able to take on board my comments and those of my colleague.

It is very rare I agree with the Fianna Fáil Party but the previous speaker, Deputy Niall Collins, called this an attack on rural Ireland and I think he is right. When the Fianna Fáil Party starts saying this is an attack on rural Ireland, the Government has a duty to sit up and listen because those in the Fianna Fáil Party have been the masters of attacking rural Ireland over the past 15 years. If anybody knows what an attack looks like, it is them, given they have shaped and led those attacks for many years. Indeed, if anybody had the opportunity to read its pre-budget submission, they would see the Fianna Fáil Party has not finished attacking rural Ireland because it plans a plethora of charges, from household charges to increased carbon taxes, motor taxes and excise duties, all of which will be deployed in attacking people right across society but, in particular, in rural Ireland.

I say genuinely that people feel this legislation is an attack on them. They feel it is discriminatory because it imposes charges and sanctions, and offences and fines if there is non-compliance, on a section of the population of this State, namely, the 441,000 people who have a septic tank in their back yard. People are genuinely concerned and really afraid. The Minister in his speech repeated the comment he made in the Seanad that people in rural Ireland have nothing to fear from this legislation. If the Minister is adamant about making that statement a reality, he needs to ensure he amends the legislation in order that we have the type of inspection and compliance with the EU directive that should have applied as far back as 1975, although previous Governments have not done so. He needs to amend it and take out the sections of which people are afraid.

People are afraid of several sections of the Bill. First, there are people out there who simply cannot afford to pay an additional €50 charge. That might be a dramatic statement or perhaps Ministers simply do not believe the fact that there are people who are that broke. However, the reality is there are such people. The Government makes no determination as to whether the person who has to pay that €50 charge is the most affluent person in society or whether it is the family that has gone to the Society of St. Vincent de Paul the week before to ask for clothes for their children or a voucher to put fuel in their tank so they can keep their house warm this Christmas. That is the problem. There is a lack of respect for what is happening out there, within the private confines of many households to which this charge will be applied.

The second point is that there is a great fear in rural Ireland as to what standard will be expected when the EPA sends out its army of inspectors to inspect the septic tanks. Very simply, the Minister can resolve this issue because he has stated time and again that the EPA will not be applying the 2009-10 guidelines but will just be ensuring that the septic tanks are functional and not causing pollution. This means that if the septic tank was granted planning permission in 1960, the inspection will be based on the standards that applied at that time. We in Sinn Féin challenge the Minister to publish the regulations he said will accompany this Bill before he asks any Deputy to take a leap of faith and put the hands of 441,000 rural dwellers into the hands of the inspectors appointed by the EPA. We on this side of the House are not going to give the EPA a blank cheque to go digging up back gardens and issuing guidance to rural dwellers that they have to apply septic standards that did not exist when they legally got planning permission.

The Minister has stated time and again this will not be the case. He should publish the regulation and the guidance so we can have a proper, informed discussion. We have asked the Minister privately in this regard and I am glad he is considering such a move because it will quell the fear in areas across the State.

The big problem with the Bill is that there will be a requirement for remedial works, no matter what standards are applied. There are septic tanks which are not functioning and which, for different reasons, have become damaged. A burden will now be placed on families to bring those septic tanks up to a proper and adequate standard. The failure of this Bill is that it does not in any way, shape or form provide State support to help people meet the compliance with the 1975 directive. Therefore, in Dublin, Lucan, Killarney or anywhere there is a public sewerage scheme, if the State is being fined or faces potential fines from Europe, the State steps in and develops a sewerage system in the town, as has happened in many towns. In Donegal, for example, where there was a potential for fines in regard to Letterkenny, the State stepped in and through direct taxation paid for the sewerage scheme in that town. In rural Ireland, however, for rural dwellers to comply with the regulation, the State is saying rural dwellers will have to bear the cost entirely themselves. That is where the Bill is utterly discriminatory.

Again, the Minister has said both privately and publicly to Sinn Féin that he his considering bringing in an income-linked grant system. This would be welcome because it is not fair to ask people in rural Ireland, if for whatever reason their septic tank is not working and given they do not have the luxury of having a public system that is paid for by the State, to pay for this out of their own pocket. This is where I disagree with Fianna Fáil Members. The Fianna Fáil Party amendments to the Bill proposed in the Seanad would mean the rural dwellers would still carry some of that burden themselves and 85% of the cost would be borne by the lowest income families in rural Ireland. That is wrong.

The other issue in regard to the Bill is what happens in regard to the by-laws in Cavan. We know the European Court of Justice has stated that Cavan is the only county that is complying with the regulations at this time. This is where the concern arises in terms of what type of regulations will be applied. The Cavan by-laws stated that the septic tanks must comply with the EPA's Treatment Systems for Single Houses 2000 document, or any future replacements of that document. As we know, that document has been replaced and the code of practice is now the 2009 EPA code. Therefore, in Cavan, if a person built a house prior to 2009 and may have complied with the 2000 regulations, the by-law states that any new and additional EPA guidelines must be complied with. If I am to accept what the Minister is saying but what he is not writing into the legislation, this will not be the case for other dwellers outside Cavan, and it will not be the case that a person will have to comply with updated EPA guidelines.

On another issue, I genuinely do not believe this will stop here. It is bad enough where it is. It is €50 for registration and €20 for an appeal, and if a person does not have a certificate of registration within ten days, an offence has been committed and the maximum fine is €5,000. When the Government introduces the new fines Bill, which it has promised to introduce in 2012, this means a fine can be deducted at source from people's income or their social welfare benefit. People who genuinely cannot afford to pay will have no option but to have these large fines deducted.

The Minister says this legislation will be self-financing. I cannot see how it will be. Let us consider the mathematics. There is a €50 registration fee and approximately 441,000 houses. That amounts to approximately €25 million. The Minister says that will cover all administration and inspection costs. However, the inspection costs do not simply occur once. There is registration every five years and there is compliance with the directive for the lifetime of the system, so there will be ongoing inspection costs. Where will the money come from for these? This is where the fear is engendered by this legislation, the fear that charges will be increased.

There is also an issue with the definitions in the Bill. The definition under section 2 of a waste water treatment system, septic tanks and other systems states that premises with no tank or a treatment system will also be covered by this legislation. Let us take, for example, the closest house to the Dáil. It has no tank or treatment system, but it is a premises so it is to be covered by the legislation. That is the definition that guides who is and is not required to register. There appears to be confusion in that.

In summary, this legislation is discriminatory and is an attack on rural Ireland. There should be no registration fee and there should be grant aid to remedy septic tanks that are not compliant with the regulation. This should be funded through the Exchequer. There is a need for the Minister to engage positively with the Opposition on the amendments we intend to table, to put his verbal statements into the legislation and, in particular, to provide that the EPA guidelines that will apply to the inspections will be the guidelines that applied at the time of construction of the tank or system. Grant aid must be provided for those on low incomes and the Minister must state that the registration fee will be waived.

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