Phil Hogan (Carlow-Kilkenny, Fine Gael)

Farmers, business people and householders want good quality water.

In the regulations, I have allowed for the fact that local authority staff will administer the scheme and the local authorities will be in charge of it. In this section, I am including a provision which will allow local authorities to take on additional staff if necessary. Not all of them will have to do so. This provision takes account of the Senator's point that some local authorities may have surplus staff. Not every local authority is the same. Under these provisions, county councils will use existing staff in the first instance, and it is in their interest to do that. However, where they require additional staff, they will be in a position to hire them. There are large numbers of qualified people interested in doing this work because, unfortunately, they are not busy on other fronts.