Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I wish to share time with Deputy Danny Healy-Rae. I am glad of the opportunity to contribute to the debate. I compliment Deputy Martin Kenny on bringing it forward and on the excellent points he made in his contribution. It is a common-sense approach. All rural Deputies are aware that the hoops and loops people have to go through to get planning permission make it nigh on impossible. While there are stringent planning guidelines, I reiterate what was said by Deputy Martin Kenny and others. We are not trying to have a free-for-all or to break any laws. However, in 2013 and 2014, Fine Gael, especially under Big Phil, the enforcer, the former Minister, tried to maintain that every house with a septic tank in rural Ireland was causing trouble. In fact, 99.9% of people with septic tanks look after them very well because it is in their own interest to do so. They maintain them, unlike people in towns. The reason the EPA report found that small towns and villages were belching sewage into watercourses, streams and the sea was to make scapegoats of people in the countryside. I listened to Deputy Martin Kenny and the director of services from Leitrim County Council on radio this morning saying that it has become so bad that people cannot build in their own county.

We have to take note of the topography of the land. Deputies Danny Healy-Rae and Scanlon are from different counties, and many Deputies from other counties have also spoken. My own county of Tipperary, in particular the Golden Vale, has areas with heavy land, wet land and different topography and soil types. We must change this approach and ensure that people who want to build a house, whether to service a farm or to look after elderly relatives, can be allowed to do it. They are not looking for a house off the State. They are prepared to pay the planning and development charges and pay an architect to design the house and a foolproof percolation scheme. We have seen the reed bed systems, and Mr. Ray O'Dwyer, who was a director of services and worked with Irish Water, was involved in such a scheme in County Waterford 30 years ago. Some of these schemes are excellent but, instead, we have rules and regulations from the EPA and commonsense has gone out the window.

Effluent discharges, for which a discharge licence must be obtained under the Local Government (Water Pollution) Act 1977, include all trade effluent discharges to any water except in accordance with a licence issued by the appropriate regulatory authorities. I have stopped on the bridge in Newcastle a number of times and have seen the EPA doing tests under it.

I have asked the EPA to conduct tests 300 yd. south where the sewerage scheme - a large tank - is belching raw sewage into the water but it will not do it. The EPA is in cahoots with the council. It will not prosecute the council, but it will prosecute the ordinary person.

I welcome Deputy Martin Kenny's Bill, which seeks to allow people who have the wherewithal in terms of a mortgage and between €10,000 and €30,000 to install a proper treatment plant to build a house. It is time this Bill was enacted. Deputy Martin Kenny said earlier that he had discussions on the Bill with the Minister of State, Deputy English, and that he is in agreement with him. I do not understand, therefore, why an amendment has been tabled to delay the Bill. Allowing the EPA and other agencies to fool around with it is nothing but jobs for the boys, many of whom would not know a bog from a cornfield. They are all experts on books and they are penalising people and causing trouble for the housing crisis. I support the Bill and I hope the Government sees sense and deals with it as an effective measure.

See this speech in context