Anne Rabbitte (Galway East, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The Minister of State has answered my question. He has told me it is to do with the county councils so why has the Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government not come here to answer my questions? I do not have a problem with the Minister of State's Department, it seems, but rather with the Department of Housing, Planning and Local Government. Its people are not answering their phones and they are infuriating, frustrating and annoying me. They are letting us down completely with their communication.

I have experience of the N63, the road from Roscommon to Galway. It is a fantastic stretch of road and €850,000 was allocated to it. It was a magnificent improvement for the areas from Abbeyknockmoy to Annagh Hill. The county council forgot to put a compulsory purchase order, CPO, in for the land. I asked the Minister a number of times when a compulsory purchase order would overrule a way leave. There was a group water scheme in this area that was not purchased by way of CPO. While the road has been upgraded in the past number of weeks, the contractors have pulled the pipes from the road. On the hottest day of the year so far two weeks ago - on 28 May, the day I put this question - one man lost three cattle because the contractor decided to pull the pipe up from the road. That pipe was owned by the group scheme and was not purchased by Galway County Council. It was not even on the design plan. There is much frustration because of a lack of communication between the council, local residents and the general public, business owners and farmers. It is inexcusable. We are about to start a project on the N67 where there is no transparency and it is not good enough.

I apologise to the Minister of State, who has been sent in here in good faith. It is his colleague, the Minister for Housing, Community and Local Government, who needs to take the heat on this. Somewhere along the line, people must be accountable and responsible. Washing machines have been blown because pressure was turned too high when water was turned back on. Pipes are not being rinsed. The group water scheme should receive some communication.

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