Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

It is in the document and I ask the Senator not to hide his head in the sand and deny the facts. That is the truth. It is on page 51 of the document signed by the former Minister, Mr. Yates, who was a good Minister for Agriculture, and the then Minister for the Environment, Deputy Howlin, who cares as much as I do for water quality. If Members read appendix 3 — table 1, they would note that it is virtually the same as table 10, which has been much vilified, since this is the document that deals with indexation which is at the heart of the issue, and yet the documentation and the wording are the same. After ten years, why is this proposal being put by the second largest political party in the country?

I draw Members' attention to the storage capacity on page 13 of the document and ask them to compare the provisions at paragraphs 2.7 and 2.8. I could go on but I do not wish to because I am sure I do not have the time.

The reality is that we are up against it. We should have done this a long time ago but we did not do so. We have already failed in a European Court judgment. We face daily fines. We should not be implementing this because we have lost a judgment or we face daily fines. We should be doing it because we care about our environment and our health. It is wrong for any political party to simply stick its head in the sand, particularly when ten years ago that same party took a directly opposite view.