Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I am delighted to join with my colleague, Deputy Ó Cuív, in bringing forward this Bill in the House today. It is an important Bill for the thousands of householders excluded from support for the maintenance and repair of their septic tanks because they did not register their septic tanks by a prescribed date.

A registration and inspection scheme was introduced in 2012 for domestic wastewater treatment systems such as septic tanks. A homeowner with a septic tank or similar system must have registered its details with his or her local authority and paid a registration fee by 1 February 2013. Anyone who registered after that deadline is now discovering that he or she is not eligible for any grant if the system is found to need remedial work. One man contacted me recently and said he was facing such an enormous bill for the upgrade of his tank that he had to sell his car. This was a grown man who had to sell his car.

Homeowners who need to upgrade their septic tanks are no longer means tested in high-status water body areas, and there is no grace period for those who may have inadvertently missed the registration deadline to allow them to apply for the grant, means tested or otherwise. The current grant level covers between 50% to 80% and is calculated according to a person's income. That is for repairs and to do the work that needs to be done through the local authority. Local authorities inspect septic tanks roughly every year but half of those inspected fail. These figures of failed inspections come from the Environmental Protection Agency, EPA. That is really worrying.

In addition to agriculture, poorly functioning septic tanks have been found to be the main pressure on water quality. They were considered to be the only cause of water pollution in 40 areas. This is not, therefore, only one house, one problem. It can impact the whole community. It is a disaster, if I am honest.

I hope the Minister will support this Bill to provide for the ongoing registration of domestic wastewater systems and eliminate the requirements to register by a prescribed date in order to enable all households to register their domestic wastewater system and find support, should they need it, for the remedial work. It is important this Bill is passed. A number of people have contacted me who did not register and do not qualify for the grant. I ask that everybody in the House supports this Bill on which I am delighted to have worked with Deputy Ó Cuív.

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