Éamon Ó Cuív (Galway West, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

When the top-up system was in place previously, the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment did not withdraw money. In fact, the top-up had the opposite effect in that it made it possible for schemes in isolated areas to access funding from that Department because it made collecting the local contribution easier and ensured that proposals for group schemes were viable. Communities were drawing down significant amounts of money from the Department of Communications, Climate Action and Environment. Does the Minister accept that it is unrealistic and wrong for Irish Water and the regulator to say that any extension of sewerage schemes should be done at total economic cost, particularly when urban areas were serviced with no local contribution?

The Minister is a great advocate for rural Ireland. Can he guarantee that the principle of extending the group sewerage schemes to areas near towns, which can be done relatively economically using the public main, will be pursued and that we only develop group sewerage schemes that can be connected into the public system? Will he reintroduce the top-up for group water schemes to achieve the simple aim of having high quality, highly monitored water in every house in this country?

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