Jennifer Murnane O'Connor (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

Today was crunch time. This legislation needed to be passed. It is refunding law-abiding citizens who paid a charge they were forced into paying. Hundreds of thousands of people protested against the charges, and hundreds of thousands paid. They deserve timely refunds.

Water is something many of us take for granted, but we cannot survive without it. Now this legislation is passed, we will work on educating people on water conservation. This Bill is partly about education. Everyone needs to be educated about water conservation. We need to achieve this but we also need to ensure we have an information campaign, including leaflets, and that people will know where to get the information. This is crucial.

It is crucial that, under this legislation, 30,000 cheques per day can be issued. Considering that 970,000 refunds will have to be completed, the legislation should go to the President for signature as soon as possible. We must do our utmost to refund the people who have paid because it is so important. Christmas is only six weeks away. It would be great if we could issue the refunds before then.

On the rural water scheme, we must put incentives in place for people who are paying for water. I will make sure I work on this personally. Today is a good day. Everything has been done well and we are all happy. I hope the President will sign off on the legislation as soon as possible.