Patrick O'Donovan (Limerick, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

Deputy Stanley will know from his membership of Laois County Council the difficulties for people in rural areas in terms of conserving their water. Every time a pipe is broken between the water meter at the end of the laneway and the bulk tank in the farmyard, that meter is still spinning around. Deputy Coppinger wants to shove up the price of water for commercial users - the farmers and the people in the small shops. That is her solution. Every time there is a broken pipe and someone has to come out, it must be paid for. This is only a small contribution towards that cost.

When someone digs up a part of a concrete yard in a farm, detects a leak, fixes it, and makes sure there is no leakage into the ground, that is an example of a water conservation element. So is harvesting the water from the roof of a shed that might be able to be used for washing a yard, but that also has to be paid for. I am surprised that Deputy Stanley thinks that one can walk into a hardware shop in Portlaoise or Tullamore, walk out with a barrel and say that one will not pay for it at all. In some utopian state a water conservation grant might not be needed, but we do because all those things have to be paid for. All those water harvesting solutions we are being encouraged to use to wash farmyards need to be paid for. This sum of money is only a small amount that is needed for that.

I say to the Minister of State that there should be a review of this within 12 to 18 months to see if it can be even further enhanced. I refer back to the old age pensioner living in Feohanagh in County Limerick, who has been on a group water scheme all her life because the alternative is to go half a mile down to the Deel. If it were not for a group water scheme established under the former parish priest in that community, Fr. Hudner, those people would be still left travelling to rivers or drilling their own wells. Perhaps Deputy Coppinger wants that and feels that people living outside the M50 do not deserve a water supply. In my estimation, those people are no different from the people who live in her constituency. I have a huge problem with this constant attack on farmers and rural people being launched by those two Deputies who want to blame them for everything.

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