Tony Killeen (Clare, Fianna Fail)

Undoubtedly it is. The distinction I was drawing is that it applies as a cap for waste water treatment for sewerage schemes. It creates some concerns in local authorities at management and local authority member levels. Initially the water services investment programme was directed mainly at major urban centres of population. A large proportion of that work has now been completed and most of the costs associated with this work have been dealt with.

The local authorities have considerable funding at their disposal but a significant variation in funding from the development funds exists between local authorities arising from the significant level of development. This fund was initiated with a view to giving the local authorities some funding to put towards the cost of these schemes. At this stage it has moved on to smaller towns and villages. Some of the difficulties which Senators Reilly and Healy Eames and others mentioned relates to these relatively small centres of population where the number of houses is very limited and this grant is paid only for a domestic supply and not for commercial premises. This creates a particular difficulty in areas where there are fairly small tourism-related facilities which are not big commercial entities but nevertheless are considered as commercial premises. Currently every centre of population with 1,000 people or more is included in the programme, as are a few with smaller numbers than that. I am confident the next review of the system will, to some extent and hopefully to a large extent, address the concerns which Senator Reilly expressed.

It is reasonable to state that it would not be possible to have a completely open cheque book for addressing these schemes. There must be a sensible attitude of addressing the areas at highest risk first.