Brian Ó Domhnaill (Fianna Fail)

Prosecutions will still issue irrespective. That will apply if a householder does not meet the required standard and we still do not know what that standard will be. There has been no clarification of the golden standard that the Minister will introduce. No one knows what it will be but we all presume it will be today's standard. According to legislation, it is the standard of today's water we need to keep clean. The Environmental Protection Agency is of the view that if it is the standard of today's water we need to keep clean that we will have to go with the most up-to-date standards, which have been accepted by the European Commission.

I welcome the deletion of the lines proposed because it is our view that the word "prosecution" or the word "offence" should not be contained in this legislation. Section 70M of the principal Act sets out all the offences and penalties contained in the legislation for non-compliance with whatever the new standard will be. The Minister might explain what the deletion of these lines will mean for a person who does not have the resources to bring his or her septic tank up to the required standard, or for a person who believes his or her tank meets the required standard on foot of having obtained planning permission and having adhered to the conditions that pertained to the planning approval for the house, or if any difficulty would arise for the person with a house built pre-1964, for which planning permission would not have been sought. The Minister might clarify the detail of what is being proposed before we proceed further.