Feargal Quinn (Independent)

I welcome the Minister of State to the House. This matter is about the need for the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government to place an obligation on local water treatment schemes to put a full technical analysis of the water provided in the public domain, on the same lines as is provided to French consumers. This issue arose when I saw the water bill of a person who has a house in France. The back of the bill was given over to a list of results for the latest scientific evaluation of the water supplied to the customer. The details included covered matters like the bacteriological state of the water, its hardness and the presence of fluoride, nitrates and pesticides. The figures were followed by a summary paragraph setting out their significance. The total effect was that each individual consumer was given a scientific evaluation he or she could understand about the recent quality of the water received.

In Ireland, we do not charge residential households for the water they consume, although the EU is pressurising us to do so in the interest of conserving an increasingly scarce resource. However, even in the absence of bills, this idea of giving regular feedback on water quality to customers is something we should think about emulating here. The quality of water we use is an issue about which people feel very strongly. Water quality is not something that can be judged subjectively by the customers when they turn on the tap. Water that looks and even tastes alright might not be alright. On the other hand, water that looks or tastes a bit off may in fact be pure by scientific standards and perfectly suitable to use and to drink.

In many of the water schemes installed around the country over the past decade, we have heard that the water quality did not come up to scratch. Given the amount of money invested in the schemes by our Government and by the EU, this is simply not acceptable. I suggest that customers themselves have a role to play in raising the standards of water quality. The first step towards such an involvement is to provide them with the scientific information on which they can judge the quality of the water they get. Every operator of a water scheme should be required by the Department to put a public information system in place that would regularly inform all of its customers on the ongoing state of the water they receive. A website could be used for this, backed up by press releases to the local media. It would not cost very much, especially since I assume that all this scientific information is already available to the operators of every water scheme. If it is not available, then we are really in trouble.

When people are better informed on the issues of water quality, they can play a more active role in exerting pressure to raise standards where that proves to be necessary. In the absence of such information, people do not really know where they stand and must rely on others to watch over the quality of the water for them. That is an unsatisfactory situation. I commend this approach to the Minister and I look forward to hearing his comments on the issue. I brought along the French water service bill with the information provided on the back. I found it fascinating to read. Since I assume the information is available, there should be no cost to this. In Paris, there are parallel water systems — one for drinking water and one for non-drinking water. They have put much effort into this and have had much success. I am sure more could be done here.