Mick Wallace (Wexford, Independent)

The amount of time we have been given to address this issue is crazy. The Government has referred to a €50 registration fee that is to suffice for five years. It is right to address the water contamination problem in the country and we should take the recommendations from Europe seriously but who will pay for the problems that exist?

Reference has been made to 440,000 septic tanks. I reckon from my experience that at least 200,000 of these will not meet European standards. Whose fault is this? There is no way the people living in these houses can be blamed for the fact that their septic tank is not as it should be. Do they meet the original planning guidelines? Were ground conditions suitable and were they even tested? Were the residents instructed to test the ground conditions by local authorities? Was the soil tested? Was the clay too heavy? Was it marled? Did anyone stop the residents from putting it there? Are there bottoms to the tanks? No bottom was put in many of these tanks because it meant they would not have to be emptied so often and consequently stuff leaked out of them more quickly. Is there enough soil over the shale in shaly areas? There should be up to 1.2 m. Is there a raised bed? Raised beds were not even considered up to seven or eight years ago. Is there enough soil for the buffer to give the bacteria a chance to disappear before the water goes into the main water table? If one is making a raised bed one is supposed to import good soil so the bacteria disappears as it works its way through and so there is nothing for it to feed on or stay alive. Has any of this happened? I suggest that in nine out of ten cases good soil was not imported for raised beds because it was considered too expensive. Is there room for an appropriate percolation area if it is necessary for work to be re-done now? What volume of chemicals are going into the tanks? What affects are they having on the bacteria in existing tanks? Chemicals are being advertised every hour on the television such that a tax should be put on them. Far too many chemicals are being used and they are interfering with the working of the tanks. Did owners get a discharge for nearby streams? Were such streams tested in advance? Will discharge to rivers be allowed from now on or will people be instructed that they cannot go to the rivers anymore because the rules have changed? Anyway, many of these systems are going to the rivers that are polluted in the first place. We were using sump pits, which have been a disaster and do not work. Anyone who has a sump pit will be instructed to take it out but no one was instructed at the time of installation.

In the case of half of the 200,000 tanks that will not comply, one will not get away with a new percolation area. There will not be sufficient room for the required percolation area in many cases and a treatment unit will be required. The bio-clean system costs €4,000 and a further €3,000 to put in place. The new BioBarrier system, which has a membrane filter, is brilliant. It allows one to harvest the water and reuse it in the house but it costs €8,000 to buy and €2,000 to fit. These are crazy amounts of money. The most vulnerable people, especially older people, will be unable to handle the man with the digger who will sell better soil to make the percolation area better and certainly these people will not be able to handle the engineer. The costs will be dramatic and I do not believe the Government has researched this area properly. Incredible costs will be involved and there will be significant problems. People will be unable to afford to pay.

See this speech in context