Stephen Donnelly (Wicklow, Independent) | Oireachtas source

Maybe, but I am speaking specifically about Arklow. For the people of Arklow, the businesses and the residents who I represent, there is no argument that states we need to charge them for wastewater in order to fund the wastewater treatment plant because the funding for that is in place through the taxes they already pay. If that is the rationale, why is it not being applied to boil water notices? Were one to apply that rationale, which I accept is not an unreasonable one to apply, although in the case of Arklow, it does not apply, surely one should be consistent and apply it to boil water notices because exactly the same argument applies. It would say to the residents of Roscommon that the water coming in is substandard so we are going to charge them for it in order to fund better quality water. That is clearly not happening in the case of water. The argument and the precedence that has clearly been set is that they have a substandard service and we are not going to charge them for it until it becomes a high quality service.

The funding is already in place in Arklow, so why should the businesses and the residents there be charged to fund the treatment plant?

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