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

I am delighted to have the opportunity to speak on the Bill. I regret that the time available to speak on this important topic is so limited. I congratulate Deputy Martin Kenny. This is the kind of day-to-day issue that we should spend more time discussing in the House. Issues of this sort affect the people.

Like many policies, this tries to fix a small problem rather than a big one. When we discussed the famous septic tank licence, the issue of the main causes of pollution arose. If we leave aside agricultural pollution for a minute, the report pointed to municipal waste being the biggest source of pollution in the country. That is obviously understandable.

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We are trying our best to deal with that. Out near the Baily lighthouse there is a straight discharge into the Irish Sea. There is a straight discharge into the Irish Sea of municipal waste from Connemara, which has a pristine coastline.

There are several ironies around septic tanks. First, despite all the hullabaloo about septic tanks, minimal remediation has been required to adhere to the standard, and these are septic tanks that were built in the old days. They are not up to the standard of a modern system.

Second, the problem with impermeable soil is not that wastewater gets into the watercourse. That is a misunderstanding. That happens with limestone where the water goes straight down, and that is where pollution occurs. Looking at the water framework plans, one finds that there is very little pollution in the watercourses in places like Connemara that have impermeable soil. What happens in those locations is that it ponds. Who are the occupants putting at risk? Themselves. They risk infection. If such a person's dog goes sniffing around in it, he or she is in danger. However, I have to say I have not yet found any doctor in my area complaining that septic tanks are causing a huge amount of infections on a daily basis. I am sure the same applies in Leitrim.

The Minister has a zero-tolerance policy. There is zero tolerance where septic tanks are concerned, but the Minister allows the discharge in large quantities from commercial development. The de minimisprinciple would suggest going to the big end of the problem, that is, tackling the larger developments and requiring the higher standard. The odd house here and there will do a lot less damage, even if the standard is not quite as high. When I was studying mathematics, I learned to take the level of pollution and multiply it by the number of those polluting. That will equate to the total national pollution. Compared with houses that are part of schemes, the number of one-off houses is so small that the sums are obviously upside-down. As I said, it is a pity we do not have more time for this debate. It always seems to me the bar is set so high in rural Ireland not to keep the water clean but to keep the houses away. There is a fetish in the Department against rural houses.

I note that we have microbreweries, microdistilleries and micro-versions of everything in this world. If it was really concerned about this issue, the Government would investigate and invest in the development of micro-wastewater plants that would do for the individual house at an affordable cost what the bigger plants do for towns, cities and housing estates. That should not be beyond technology.

It would be very easy for rural Ireland to have a system for purifying run-off water and regular desludging of all other septic tanks by the State. At present, the State de-sludges every municipal waste tank every day. We are only asking for once every three years.

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