Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail)

The Minister has given an undertaking in respect of the regulations. I am satisfied on that issue now that we are going in a proper direction and proceeding in a systematic manner. I am content to wait and see what the EPA advises the Minister to publish. We will also be pressing at the committee that the EPA, An Taisce and such organisations should be invited in to advise the committee in advance in order that we inform ourselves of what will take place. We can plod through these matters in detail.

Deputy Stanley shares my concern on this issue. It would be most helpful to us if the Minister could give the references, in law or statutory instrument, in other words, in primary or secondary legislation, that exempt us in respect of site size and arrangements whereby people do not have a septic tank on their own land but rather on a neighbour's land, and in respect of environmental screening and possible environmental impact analysis. If the Minister does not have it to hand today, is it possible between now and the weekend to get for all Members the references to the particular legislative provisions that allow these exclusions? The Minister has given categorical assurances in this regard. We maintain that there must be some law to allow the Minister to do this. Will the Minister get us these references so that we can study them, analyse them and establish whether they stand up? If they are watertight, we will accept them. I believe this is a reasonable request and it would allow me to sign off on two more underlying issues I had with this Bill at the beginning.

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