Mattie McGrath (Tipperary, Independent) | Oireachtas source

I do not accept the figures. Because they came from the EPA, they are gospel, but that agency produced a report recently about areas with no pollution and gave the whole county of Tipperary a clean bill of health, when there are 30 plants - I visited one in my village last week with about ten officials from Irish Water - spewing raw sewage. The figures are thwarted, anti-farmers and pro-local authorities. They are not honest, fair or correct. The Minister of State needs to look into that seriously. Neither I nor anybody in this House believes there are only 160,000 septic tanks in the country. That is far off the mark.

The money announced for the grant scheme is welcome but you cannot get it. The lady who rang me was told by the council it was sorry but she was not in the area the grant applies to. There are vast swathes of the country like that. It is lovely to announce the big scheme. It looks and sounds grand and is a good PR spin but if people ring up about a problem with their tank that will cost €10,000 or even €20,000 for some of the new percolation systems that have been put in, they have a tough situation. It you are in a town or city that is connected, you are fine, but it is an onerous task. All householders I know want to keep their septic tanks right, do not want pollution or odours and do their best to maintain them.

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