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

With regard to the leakage of water, unless there are district flow meters one will never find where the leak is occurring. As anybody who understands water supply knows, one must use loggers from one district flow meter to another. One also needs to have meters in the different areas because a large amount of water is leaked and finding the leak is the problem. All of these things cost money.

I agree wholeheartedly with a conservation grant. Years ago in rural Ireland, before water was brought into houses, every householder had a tank beside the house. The tank was used for many different purposes. We must ensure we give incentives for tanks or other measures to be put in place. It could be an intermediate bulk container tank given the amount of water that runs off gutters and so forth. However, one must ensure there is a filtering system. Incentives must be put in place for that.

Ultimately, however, there is the issue of pipes, especially in Dublin. I worked on this in Dublin. There are pipes around Dublin that have been in place for a long time and they will have to be replaced. There must be district flow meters, loggers and meters to find out where the problems are. The one thing required for all of that is money.

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