James Bannon (Fine Gael)

Over the years we understood that local authorities were responsible for some eight to ten programmes, namely housing, roads, environmental issues etc. However, following its establishment, the National Roads Authority took a great deal of the powers away from the local authorities in respect of national primary and secondary routes. Now we are setting up the water services authority. This will be an umbrella for the local authority. It will be easy for a future government to cut off the water services authority from the local authority. It is opening an avenue for privatisation in the future. The Minister of State cannot disagree with me on that. Why not leave it in the remit of local authorities which are doing a fine job? My local authority, Longford County Council, has provided water to 95% of the population in the county by way of group water schemes etc. We have some of the best reservoirs in the country in Longford, giving an adequate supply of clean water. A big problem in our county, however, which is similar to that in other counties, is the lack of proper sewerage facilities in the towns and villages. There is a major shortfall in funding for sewerage schemes, which is causing contamination to the water supplies. In the last ten years enormous development has taken place in many villages and they are not able to cope because of the lack of properly constructed sewerage schemes. This is having an impact on ground water supplies. Perhaps the Minister could grant funding to applicant schemes from the different local authorities to construct sewerage schemes. That would be one way of cleaning up water supplies. The amount of raw sewage running into many of our waterways and water courses is disgraceful. It needs to be tackled if there is to be a guaranteed supply of clean water throughout the land.