Michael Fitzmaurice (Roscommon-Galway, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Rural Independent Group for sharing time.

The people in the group water schemes have been basically neglected in the past few years, although the Minister said earlier they were not. As I am chairman of a scheme, I know the reality is that the subvention has been cut in order that those in the schemes had to go to members to get more money. They have been pushed forwards and backwards for the past two years and they did not know where they were going. If the Minister is to treat them properly, at a minimum he will have to increase the subvention by €100 per house to treat them equally with everybody else. Unless that happens, it is no good to the group water schemes.

Will the people in rural Ireland have to pay their taxes on their work, as they do, and then on top of that pay for their septic tanks? We should bear in mind that the water in and the water out are going to be free. However, for those with their own septic tanks, any problem with the tank will cost up to €10,000. The Constitution states we will treat all citizens equally. Are we going to make sure they are treated equally in a fair society? I have no problem if we have to pay something in taxes. However, if we are going to pay it in taxes, we have to make sure the people right around rural parts of Ireland are treated fairly. In addition, those with their own private wells have their own pumps and have put in their own chlorination and filtering systems. In what way are they covered in the new system that will be brought in?

I advise everybody to go to a sewage treatment plant and a water treatment plant. Let us forget about charging or not charging, but anybody who does not believe in a meter is codding themselves and does not know anything about water. I will give a simple statistic. In one group water scheme 950 cu. m. was being used per week and, with the help of the meters, it was brought down to 375 cu. m.

That has meant less electricity, the addition of less chlorine and less work for people to do. In all such schemes around the country, people are doing this voluntarily. I have no problem paying through general taxation, but we cannot be treating those I describe completely differently.

I welcome the Minister's acknowledgment of the group water schemes. Irrespective of where the money is to come from, the Minister has now made a commitment in the House that there will be no charge and a levy for excess use. Whoever produced the figures on the excess was obviously not doing the mathematics very well, for the simple reason that it amounts to 90 cu. m. per person. On a group water scheme, a family of two adults and two children uses on average – one can go from the highs to the lows – between 75 cu. m and 120 cu. m. We are, however, going to give 90 cu. m multiplied by four, which is 360 cu. m.

See this speech in context