Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister to the House. I was in a position yesterday to listen to what was an informed debate on this issue. I have some questions for the Minister. First, I have deep reservations about the awarding of the contract for this water service to Bord Gáis. It should have been more transparent. With the huge dip in construction employment I would like to see local contractors, primarily those who have experience and training in plumbing, involved in this project. I met some of them last week and they would be very interested in becoming involved as sub-contractors. I would not like to see the work sub-contracted to two or three firms in Ireland.

I made a point here previously about a new second level college that was built in Bantry and opened by the Minister of State, Deputy Sherlock. A gaelscoil next door, which I was very involved with over the years, was opened by the Minister's colleague, the Minister of State, Deputy McGinley. They were great occasions for the town but what concerned me about both those contracts was that many people worked on them but because of the European tendering process, less than 20% of those involved in those jobs were from west Cork. That is a wrong approach when there are many people who are idle. If there was a job in Louth, the Minister of State's neck of the woods, and the people appointed were Dublin-based or Galway-based, he would ask why there was not more local involvement.

I have a grave concern that this Government or a subsequent Government will impose a water extraction charge in the future on those who have their own bored wells. That is European thinking and I hope it is not the thinking of the Cabinet. I would hope a definitive answer could be given that that will not be the case. I live in south Schull at the end of a cul-de-sac with about 12 or 14 houses and for various reasons none of us has a public water supply. On three occasions my partner has bored wells without success and had an awful problem with contamination of the well, use of filters and so on which is annoying from the point of view of washing, dish washing and even using the shower. We would love to have a proper water supply. It would gall people in those circumstances, and I am sure there are thousands of them in rural Ireland, if they had to pay an extraction charge for water in the future. The view is that water is a very valuable commodity whether the State provides it by way of this new scheme, the local authorities or whatever and that anyone who extracts water from the ground for use will have to pay for that. I hope that is not about to dawn.

The issue I raise may not be directly related but it should be under consideration. I was a member of the local authority in west Cork for about 18 years until my election to the Dáil in 2002 and I was deeply concerned about the quality of water in the region. We had major issues with the main water supply for the Bantry region, which covers a large area, and the council had to put in an amount of additives to make the water potable - that is the word they used. I got the water analysed by experts in St. Finbarr's Hospital and the results were that the water was potable but there was an awful stench from it at various times of the year. If people are expected to pay for water they will expect it to be top quality and in that regard it is difficult for me, as a Member of the Oireachtas, to say that for almost a decade I have been buying gallons of drinking water. A Labour Party Senator asked yesterday if anyone ever thought Ballygowan would be a success but I buy gallons of drinking water. I am conscious that one can buy two gallons of water for less than a pint of stout, and it is probably better for me-----