Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

If Minister was to read the information that I give at the meetings, he would note that my contention is that, sooner or later, Europe will force the Minister to apply the 2007 water framework directive and, whether he likes it or not and despite all his fine talk, he will wind up with those standards because it will be impossible to explain to a court in Europe that whereas this system is required in a new house to give clean water, and that is all it will give, a much simpler and inferior system will produce the same clean water. If that is so, why is the 2009 standard proposed by the EPA? It is inescapable logic and that is the point the Minister has been missing from beginning. What he is trying to say to the people is that he will get away with a low standard, he will wait for An Taisce to go over to Brussels and for Brussels to give him an order in regard to 2009, and then he will throw up his hands in horror and say that he cannot fund all of that and that people will have to pay for it themselves. That is exactly where he is leading the people.

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