Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I do not accept there has been any delay in progressing work in this area. The additional time required has arisen primarily from the carrying out of a public consultation process on draft performance standards which I committed to undertake during consideration of the draft legislation in the Oireachtas.

The Water Services (Amendment) Act 2012 contains a number of regulation-making provisions for the purpose of enabling the provisions of the Act to have full effect. Earlier this week, I signed a commencement order under section 5(3) of the Act which brings the provisions of the Act into operation with effect from 26 June 2012, and also made regulations under Section 70B(13) of the Act enabling registration of domestic waste water treatment systems to commence from that date. I also made regulations concerning performance standards for domestic waste water treatment systems under Section 70L(1) of the Act. The relevant statutory instruments will be laid before both Houses of the Oireachtas without delay.

The on-line and paper application registration systems for domestic waste water treatment systems have been developed by the local government management agency on behalf of the local authorities and facilities to register have been available since last Tuesday.

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