Dara Calleary (Mayo, Fianna Fail)

I welcome the debate on this legislation. There is very little disagreement on this side of the House with what many of the Members opposite are saying. We all accept that the system must be changed. That is why, in Government, we introduced the farm waste management scheme and made a record capital investment in agriculture and in water treatment facilities throughout the State.

However, we are being asked, in this legislation, to buy a very large pig in a poke. We are being asked to accept guarantees from a Government which has already sold us one pig this year. We will see the colour of that next week. Having said that, I have no reason to doubt the Minister's intentions in this regard. He tells us that the standards the EPA currently has in place, the 2009 guidelines, will not apply to all septic tanks. We have that in writing, he said it in this House and in the Seanad. In that regard, I commend my party colleagues in the Upper House who exposed this legislation for what it is. The Minister also gave this undertaking on "The Week in Politics" programme.

I ask the Government to place the confirmation note from the EPA in the Oireachtas Library before this Bill is voted on. The Minister tells us he has done a deal with the European Commission that it will not impose any other standards to those currently in existence and that it will not force people with septic tanks installed 30 or 40 years ago to upgrade them. We all know there are bodies outside this House who take a very different view of rural life from those of us who live in rural Ireland. They have a zealous attitude to rural life and they will challenge that legislation and that interpretation and they will go to every court in this land and on the continent to try to ensure the most rigorous standards are employed. This is where the problem starts. Nobody is concerned about registration fees but people are concerned about the cost of upgrading the tanks. The regulatory impact assessment provision in this legislation is so vague as to be like a car sales brochure, all fluffy language, with no information about the standard.

The Minister said in his contribution that all that is required is that the septic tank is working, but who defines what is meant by a working septic tank? Will it be the Minister or the EPA or the European Commission? We do not know what the regulatory impact assessment will regard as a working septic tank. This is what concerns people. They are concerned that in order to ensure the septic tank is working it may cost thousands of euro for an upgrade. They are not concerned about the registration fee. Given that the regulatory impact assessment is so woolly, we cannot judge what the cost will be.

We have previous experience of the Commission, the EPA and other government bodies, challenging the spirit of legislation. I cannot stand over this Bill which was rammed through the Seanad last week and an attempt is being made to ram it through this House today. If the Minister is so sure about his Bill and so sure about the guarantees he has from the various organisations, he should lay those documents in the Oireachtas Library tonight. He should publish them so that we can all see those guarantees. Perhaps if we see the strength of the guarantees we might be able to stand over the legislation and decide there will not be massive investment costs for rural dwellers.

Next week the Government will ask people to pay a household charge of €100. Will they be asked to pay a septic tank registration under this legislation and a range of other charges? The Government has the opportunity to stop this charge. We want clarification on the standard required and what is meant by a working septic tank. It is a pity the backbenchers on the other side would not take that chance. We all agree with what the Minister wants to do and we all agree we need to have the best possible environment. Some Deputies mentioned the Galway situation but that was not caused by a septic tank; it was the fault of the local authority. Many other issues and sectors are a far bigger part of this problem than rural dwellers and their septic tanks and these are not being challenged. I ask for a level playing pitch so that we know exactly on what we are being asked to vote this evening. We might then view it differently but we will not buy a pig in a poke a second time this year from this Government.

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