Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)

I am sincerely pleased to be here today to report on the amendments made to the Water Services Bill. This legislation is important and historic in many ways not only because it is likely to be one of the last major Bills to go through the Oireachtas in its current mode but, more to the point, it deals with the law on water services over a long period and updates it.

Some considerable time has elapsed since the Bill was passed in this House in July 2004. This lapse was necessitated by the unforeseen requirements to address complex and technical issues which came to light in the interim and on which I will elaborate later.

The extended passage of time has, however, afforded me the opportunity to review the Bill in detail and to address issues raised by Members in both Houses during the course of the earlier debates. Senators may recall that two key issues, in particular, raised during the previous debate in the House were concerns, first, that the Bill could facilitate privatisation and, second, a general unease with proposals about the making of water services strategic plans. These originally were intended to be executive functions rather than functions reserved to elected members of the water services authority. Both have now been dealt with in an unequivocal manner with new provisions inserted to ensure against privatisation of water services infrastructures, which is an important set of provisions, and provisions on strategic planning have been revised to give responsibility for the making of such plans to the elected members, in the first instance, such that they become functions reserved to councillors.

Concerns, which were never well based, that the Bill might be a mechanism for the introduction through the back door of domestic charges have been also addressed with the insertion of a new section 105 to provide for another absolute prohibition on charging for domestic water services. This is the second absolute prohibition in domestic law to provide for that.

A new section 97 provides essential powers for local authorities to lay water pipes across land for the purpose of providing water services. Three additional new sections were also added for technical purposes to update the cross-reference to the Water Supplies Act 1942, the Planning and Development Act 2000, and the Local Government Act 2001 to ensure synchronisation of the new Act and in the case of the 2001 Act to update cross-references generally to other legislation since its enactment.

The amendments fall into nine broad groups which I will address. If Senators have queries on amendments not specifically referred to, I will be glad to elaborate on them.

Turning to the technical amendments, the first group, while a significant number of them have been made to the Bill, almost three quarters of them — more than 170 — are of a technical or drafting nature, for example, to correct syntax errors, to correct or update cross-references, to update definitions for greater clarity or to align wording generally with the current drafting practice. Typical examples are amendments Nos. 6 and 8 which update the definition of agriculture and distribution system to provide greater clarity. Amendment No. 7 inserts a new definition of aquaculture. Amendments Nos. 22 and 23 improve the definition of the term "source". Amendments Nos. 17, 18 and 48 are drafting in nature to update the collective citation of the Companies Act. Amendment No. 34 removes the reference to the now spent drinking water directive 80/778/EC and inserts references to two additional directives in section 5 of the nitrates directive and the EU directive on measuring instruments.

Amendments Nos. 77 to 80, inclusive, and amendment No. 137 update sections 32 and 58 of the Bill to ensure the complete transposition of the EU drinking water directive. These arose from internal discussions between officials of the Department and the European Commission to ensure compliance of the Irish legislative code with the directive.

A large number of the amendments, commencing with amendment No. 35 to section 6, were technical drafting amendments to replace each usage in the Bill of the words "guilty of an offence" with the words "commits an offence" to reflect latest drafting practice. A large group of 16 similar amendments, commencing with amendment No. 41 to section 9, change the existing format of the numbers affected from words to numerals in the text.

Amendment No. 141 brings greater clarity to section 60, removing a loophole from previous wording. The duty of care that requires authorised water service providers to maintain waste water works in good order could have been undermined if the provider in question was not a properly licensed authority. The current improved wording applies that duty instead to persons in charge of such waste water works.

Amendments Nos. 233 and 234 update the Long Title in the light of various additions inserted in the Bill and provide that one of its purposes is "in the interests of the common good". Such additional provision will provide the courts with a reference point for their interpretation of the Act.

I could continue with examples but I have indicated in my contribution the technical nature of many of the amendments. Many of them came from Opposition suggestions and make significant improvements to the Bill.