Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail)

I do not want to labour the point but I am aware of at least half a dozen cases involving problems with septic tanks. In one case a women in my constituency purchased a house in good faith only to discover many years later - she is now an elderly lady - that her septic tank was built on a neighbour's property. It was done 30 or 40 years ago on a word of mouth basis and she is not able to access the neighbouring land to service or clean the tank. She has tried the legal route to access the land because the other party refused her right of way. In such a situation, one may be serving a notice on the owner of the land on which the septic tank was built rather than the owner of the house. That might be a good thing for my constituent because she is very worried about the matter.

Having closed hundreds, if not thousands, of sales in my time, I am aware that architects, engineers and solicitors are responsible for certificates of compliances. However, this is a new kettle of fish whereby a property owner is obliged to register his or her septic tank with the local authority. Does the owner hire his or her own engineer to inspect the property? If I was advising the owner I would suggest that he or she should go to the local authority to ensure it is happy with the situation. That would require two inspections. As the local authority is responsible for registration, it would have to inspect the septic tank for compliance.

Contrary to the arguments made by the Minister last night, it is almost certain that local authority inspections of septic tanks will become compulsory and routine. Perhaps that is a good thing but it will also create additional problems when buying or selling land. If I was buying property, I would write to my local authority to ask whether it carried out an inspection and before I closed the sale I would demand that the tank be inspected either by the authority or an approved inspector. That is different from putting the onus on an independent engineer or architect or solicitor in closing the sale. I accept that we all have professional negligence cover, but this will add another layer of bureaucracy and cost.