Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

I brought proposals to the Government to deal with this. Otherwise we would have to pay. As a taxpayer, Senator Walsh does not want to pay out €26,000 per day but that is what we will be faced with if we do not have an inspection and monitoring system to deal with this in a risk-based model.

The legislation I propose is on that basis, not on having a universal inspection of every house, as the Fianna Fáil Party claimed. I was able to negotiate against us having to do that and was able to use the Water Services Act 2007 introduced by the Fianna Fáil Party in order to deal with areas with high risk water courses. I merely comply with that Act in order to ensure we have good ground water and a good environment.

The Fianna Fáil Party voted against this Bill on Second Stage, yet the Senators say they are in favour of having good ground water. They voted against the principle of this Bill.