David Cullinane (Sinn Fein) | Oireachtas source

I support Senator Ó Clochartaigh. Regardless of one's view on water charges, we all accept that water conservation is very important. We need to do whatever we can to encourage people to conserve water. Undoubtedly we lose a considerable amount of money on water that is wasted.

It is a precious resource that costs money to treat and so on. There are two ways in which one can deal with this, the first of which is to deal with it at planning stage for new builds, whereby one encourages, for example, auto-flush toilets, rain and wastewater harvesting and all the sensible things one should be doing. However, where buildings are already in place, be they business premises, domestic dwellings or whatever, one should then provide grant aid and assistance to those who wish to conserve water but who may not have the money to invest in upgrading their houses in the case of domestic properties or their business premises with water conservation measures such as rain harvesting, grey water harvesting or other measures one can take within a building, such as auto-flush toilets for taps and so on. It would be useful for the Government to come up with grants and initiatives that would support conservation because this certainly would help the Government to sell this measure, which will be a difficult task as it is. Notwithstanding my opposition to charges, I would support fully any measures the Government might introduce that would help people to conserve water. It would be an act of good faith on the part of the Government were it able to point out, during the passage of this Bill, what type of grant schemes might be available in the future to households to help them to conserve water. I refer in particular to older houses in which it is known system problems exist. If such households upgrade their systems, will grant support be given? I reiterate Senator Ó Clochartaigh's point on the question of who would actually give such grant support and from where would such money come. These are important issues that should be teased out at this point.