Batt O'Keeffe (Cork South Central, Fianna Fail)

I thank Senator Burke for raising what is obviously a very important issue.

My Department's Water Services Investment Programme 2005-07, published last December, includes some 60 major water and sewerage schemes, with a value of over €451 million for Galway. Over the years the Department has delegated more and more responsibilities to local authorities to speed up the procurement of new water services infrastructure. The Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Roche, and I have recently greatly extended this devolution of functions when we announced that for every project in the water services investment programme valued under €5 million, local authorities will henceforth be entitled, after they receive preliminary approval, to proceed right through to construction without further reference to the Department. This gives local authorities the power to advance individual schemes with considerably reduced involvement by the Department. The result should be a significant speeding up of the process for hundreds of individual smaller schemes — from drawing board through to completion. More importantly, it will mean that the Department's expertise can be concentrated on advancing the bigger and more costly projects.

The Kinvara sewerage scheme is included, at an estimated cost of €2.8 million, to start construction in 2007 in the Department's current water services investment programme. It might be worth having a word with the officials in Galway because additional information has been requested from Galway County Council in order to allow a decision to be made on the revised preliminary report for the scheme received from the council. Perhaps the Senator might talk to the county manager, because the sooner the council gets the information to the Department, matters can be advanced to the construction stage in line with the revised procedures we have put in place. I hope this clarifies the position for the Senator and I assure him that a decision will be made on the preliminary report and a response issued to the council as quickly as possible after receipt of the necessary information.