Michael Kitt (Galway East, Fianna Fail)

I am a little disappointed with the Minister of State's reply. I am anxious to find out what happened to the €1.1 million in planning and development charges that was allocated from the council's own resources. The Minister of State is responding on behalf of the Minister - I appreciate this is not his Department - so perhaps he does not know. The councillors decided that the village of Kiltormer should get a small sewerage scheme, which it badly needs. I represented the Kiltormer area, which the Minister of State knows as well as I do, at county council level for 17 years, including when this project was first proposed. If I live for another few weeks, I will have been representing the area in the Oireachtas for 37 years. I have been pushing this scheme for a long time.

It is disappointing that the Minister of State has been unable to provide information on where the money went. Did the consultants who were appointed draw up a report? What happened the site that was identified for the treatment plant? There must be some record of what happened the money and the preparations that were made for the scheme. One of the reasons I have been approached on this issue is that people will soon have to pay €5 or €50 to register their septic tanks. People in Kiltormer think that if this scheme had been completed in 2006 or 2007, they would not have to pay €5 or €50 to register their septic tanks. That is a fair comment. No one is objecting to that on those grounds. The point that is being made by those who feel rural Ireland is being discriminated against is that the €5 or €50 charge that is being imposed on everybody with a septic tank will not have to be paid by those whose properties are served by sewerage systems. It has been suggested that people whose septic tanks need to be improved will have to pay up to €1,700.

I do not think the Minister of State has answered many of the questions that are being raised in this regard. I ask him to get back to me. Perhaps he can contact the Department to find out what happened the funding that was made available by councillors in good faith? I refer to receipts from the development charges. If that information is made available, it might be possible to make a start with this scheme.

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