Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted that the Minister of State will accept the motion and that we are supported by many of the Opposition parties but I am disappointed in some I see pontificating gach lá anseo. Every day of the week we hear Deputy Eamon Ryan from the Green Party talking about the environment and everything else yet he is not troubled by this very significant issue that affects rural and urban Ireland. We are not a bit anti-urban. Then there are our colleagues in the Social Democrats and Deputy Boyd Barrett, who want money for everything and champion the cause of the cannot pay, will not pay, want everything and pay for nothing brigade. Where are they when there are real issues for the people who have to pay all the time and who never minded paying and putting their shoulders to the wheel to dig the wells, develop and provide the water schemes, hold community meetings and collect the money. Ní neart go cur le chéile, as the adage of the meitheal goes. I can think of many water schemes I saw when I was coming home from school as a buachaill óg. I saw the men who worked on them before they even had JCBs. Then they got the equipment. I could talk about a scheme in Tedavnet, in north Monaghan. My late father-in-law was its chairman for years and my sister-in-law runs it now. Eight hundred people are involved. It runs seamlessly. People pay €700 or €800 to collect and there is no problem. The charges Irish Water is looking for are in the tens of thousands. Like my colleagues, I praise the many engineers and the other people, including the clerks of works, the ordinary technicians and the footsoldiers, who develop many schemes and reservoirs. When Irish Water and big Phil the enforcer took over there was not a pipe. There was no water anywhere, only buckets. We had proper infrastructure and all we wanted was a little money to help keep it going and maintained.

I worked on this motion. I worked very hard with the Office of the Parliamentary Legal Adviser for several months to draw up a Private Members' Bill on the issue of combined drains. I want the Minister of State to clarify to me right now a statement he made a few minutes ago in this regard. The Bill was eventually deemed to require more than the incidental expenses allowable and was ruled out of order. As the motion mentions, the refusal to maintain such combined drains causes huge difficulties within rows of houses where a blockage may occur in a particular property. The Minister of State is wrong and I will correct him. These were built by local authorities, either by themselves or by contractors. The quasi-public pipe went along the front gardens or the back gardens and down to the public sewer at the road. That is a quasi-public pipe where it connects with several public mains. Why is this not taken in charge? I think it was trick-o'-the-loop. It must have been Hallowe'en when the transposition took place because this was deliberately left out. I thank the council officials and outdoor members who went in regularly and cleared the pipes with a Dyno-Rod jet or whatever else. Many pipes have dropped and shattered and toilet paper, etc., gets caught in the crevices. That needs to be sorted. It is not fair to Mary, Biddy or Tommy in their 90s to have blockages in their areas, with wastewater coming up into their porches in some cases. I have been in the houses. I have seen two or three instances of excrement coming up. The people in the houses up along the line are under pressure and have to hire the people with Dyno-Rod jets to come in. It is totally unfair and is discrimination against these people and the Minister of State must sort it out. Such difficulties did not arise when the local authorities looked after water services. Irish Water, in its water services strategic plan, has noted that the management of sewage effluent from combined drains during times of periodic flooding is a key challenge. The Minister of State heard stories from all over the county tonight. Rivers are being polluted, our environment is being damaged, our waterways are being polluted and we need to do something about it.

The Minister of State mentioned Fianna Fáil and blamed whomever else for negotiating to get rid of water charges. Fine Gael acquiesced. It gave in. It should never have done so. It should have held the ground and turned off the taps for a while of the people who do not want to pay for anything and then they would pay. What about the man who has to go to the well, pay to repair his own well, and maintain the electricity? The electricity goes off when the frost comes and these men have to leg it out and put red lights on the wells. One will never know the value of water until the well runs dry, as I mentioned. The people who worked on and developed water schemes were pioneers.

There is no fairness for rural dwellers, urban dwellers or those from towns. Incidentally, there are 100,000-odd septic tanks in the city of Dublin, so it is not entirely an urban issue. I am surprised that An Teachta Ó Riain ón gComhaontas Glas - beidh an páirtí imithe le Páirtí an Lucht Oibre - was not here to debate this motion tonight. This is an issue that affects all of Ireland, irrespective of whether one is a rural or an urban dweller. I resent the fact that we have been bundled, like the bundled packages, into the Independent Alliance. We have nothing to do with the Independent Alliance of the Minister, Deputy Ross. He is only interested in big rugby balls, Garda stations and so on. We are interested in rural Ireland and ordinary people who pay their way and are willing to do so having a fair crack of the whip. All they want is a little support, a little cabhair - ní neart go cur le chéile - and to be let live in dignity and have clean water in which their kids can swim and bathe and safe drinking water and not to have the EPA hitting them with fines.

When the Minister of State goes to Europe - I do not know whether he wears a blindfold so he does not hang his head in shame-----

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