Maurice Cummins (Fine Gael)

I welcome the Minister. I welcome this comprehensive Bill dealing with water services. As the Minister stated, it updates quite an amount of legislation dating back even to Victorian times which bears very little relevance to modern times. It is everybody's wish that a high level of professionalism is achieved in the water services sector to ensure that EU drinking water standards are complied with at all times. Despite what the Minister said, I am concerned that the Bill will pave the way for the privatisation of Ireland's water supply and that it may be used as a vehicle to introduce water charges but obviously not before the local elections. The Minister may say that the Bill will not change the position on water charges but I wonder whether we can believe anything this Government says. It has broken practically every promise made in the general election and deceived the electorate. It remains to be seen whether there will be more deceit and hidden agendas before the local elections.

The Bill deals with metering of premises. Most people whose premises are currently metered bear the brunt of increases on an annual and local basis. There is obviously no respite in the Bill for these people. As a nation we can be critical of EU directives but the EU directives on the environment, particularly with regard to the quality of drinking water and waste water treatment, for example, have transformed the way we think about these issues. They will serve the country well by ensuring greater care, management and accountability on environmental issues in the future.

Successive Governments have spent and continue to spend substantial sums on water services. The EU Cohesion Fund assisted greatly in co-financing many of these schemes throughout the country. The objectives of the fund's investment in water services were to facilitate the achievement of high environmental standards through the provision of adequate water supply and waste water infrastructure; support continuing economic and social development; secure compliance with EU and national water quality waste water standards; remedy and prevent future water pollution; and achieve improved management. The Bill's objectives are similar and it deals with many other areas that are of paramount importance to the future sustainable management of water services.

Water services authorities, as they are termed, seem to be packaged in such a way that they can easily be cut off from the umbrella of the local authority. It is this definition of functions and powers that leads me to question whether the ultimate goal of the Government is the privatisation of the water supply and its management. I have no problem with the requirement of a six-year strategic plan for the purpose of improvement, management and the operation of water services infrastructure. This is a sensible approach and one that can be measured to provide a maximum return on the significant investment of public finances in this area.

According to the EPA, some public water supplies are constantly in breach of standards for nitrates pollution. The EU nitrates directive was to be implemented fully by now but the Government's response was to ask for a further four year postponement before the full implementation of the directive. I ask the Minister to inform the House of the present position of the EU nitrates directive——