Pat Gallagher (Donegal South West, Fianna Fail)

The purpose of the amendment is to provide additional grounds under which a water services authority may review a trade effluent discharge licence issued under section 63. In addition to the existing grounds, it will enable a review to be carried out at the discretion of a water services authority in two further circumstances: where the capacity of the relevant waste water treatment plant properly to treat the trade effluent discharge has been or is likely to be exceeded; and where a drain or a service connection, or part of it, through which trade effluent is discharged to a sewer under a licence is itself declared to be a sewer under section 69. Paragraphs (e) and (f) remain unchanged and the additional paragraph (g) enables a water services authority to review a trade effluent discharge licence where the capacity of the treatment works into which the effluent is to eventually discharge is exceeded or likely to be exceeded.

This is a necessary provision to ensure that the integrity of the authority's waste water treatment process is maintained. A water services authority may, for example, decide to require a licensee to carry out a specified level of pre-treatment in order to preserve some of its own treatment capacity and it could set out requirements in this regard in the conditions of a revised licence issued following the review.

With regard to paragraph (h), it is envisaged that the powers under section 69 to declare a drain or service connection to be a sewer under the control of a water services authority could be invoked, for example, in the case of a complex drainage system in an industrial estate in order to facilitate the application of trade effluent licensing requirements to a particular industrial outlet. In such circumstances, an existing trade effluent licence may need to be reviewed to ensure it is synchronised properly with the new licence issued to the individual industrial outlet.