Barry Cowen (Laois-Offaly, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When I told the senior official that this showed another example of there having been no proper preparation by anyone concerned with the debacle that is the Irish Water construct since the get-go, I was told that I was political and should not have said anything of the sort. I am a politician, for God's sake, who represents people in a constituency like many others and who is asked to relay their fears and worries and to seek answers and satisfaction for them as to what might take place.

The grant system will supposedly be similar to the one that is administered by local authorities in respect of people who have issues with their septic tanks. If a constituent of mine sees that his or her tank is not functioning properly, if it is overflowing or may be a pollutant to a watercourse under which it is placed, he or she will tell the relevant local authority about the problem, that it needs to be rectified, as that is what the person must do now that the regulations have moved on since planning permission was first received, and that he or she wants the grant that the Government announced last year. Does the Minister of State know what the local authority will do? It will put its hands in its ears because it can do nothing. It can only inspect a sample of, for example, ten tanks out of 5,000 per annum in the county for which it has authority. If the constituent is not one of those ten, he or she cannot get the grant because his or her tank has not been tested. Whether one's tank is tested is a lottery.

A few days ago, I told Irish Water officials that I knew of people who, due to their septic tank systems, may have been acting as pollutants to underground watercourses in certain counties, but I was told that it was not Irish Water's responsibility.

See this speech in context