Ruairi Quinn (Dublin South East, Labour)

Deputies are familiar with the background to this issue. It has nothing to do with the troika or the bailout, but has everything to do with our treaty and legal obligations regarding clean water and ensuring our neighbour's water, whether in urban or rural Ireland is clean. It also has everything to do with the fact that this Republic was cited as being in breach of the obligations and undertakings we gave. Deputy Higgins, as a former Member of the European Parliament, will be more aware of this than anybody else and knows the strength of the European Court of Justice.

I need not remind the Deputy of how the City of Galway was closed down some summers ago because of the poisoning of the water. That is what this is about. It is because we have failed to implement a clean water requirement in rural Ireland -----

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