Denis O'Donovan (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

The issue of water harvesting needs to be considered. I recently saw that a new school building incorporated in its design the notion of water harvesting. In future strategic planning the Minister and Irish Water should be very cognisant of the harvesting of water for schools and hospitals for use in the flushing of toilets etc. - obviously not for drinking. There is great potential in that area. With the way that climate is changing Ireland seems to be getting more intense rainfall and, in this summer in particular, long periods of dry weather. We should not close off any area such as the harvesting of water. It is like the fluoridation debate - we should keep an open mind on it.

We should encourage water harvesting pilot projects even in local authority estates where there is housing for the elderly, etc. Even if we harvested only 20% of rainwater and put it to proper use it would reduce the pressure on, in particular, the cities where we have a big problem. I ask the Minister of State for his views on the matter. I will not push the issue to a vote but it should not be ignored in the broad thrust of saying "this is the way we are going". With climate change we do not know what the future holds. Some experts believe we will get very long periods of drought even in Ireland and then when we get the rainfall it will be very intense. We will need to ensure that when the rain falls it does not just flow into the Irish Sea or the Atlantic Ocean.