Eugene Murphy (Fianna Fail) | Oireachtas source

I welcome the Minister of State. I very much welcome Senator Garvey's motion, which is extremely important for everybody. It gives all of us an opportunity to speak about the importance of water and how sometimes, in the Irish context, we waste it. In my own home, we often had to tell the children when they were younger to turn off the taps. One sees that going on in lots of houses. Every single one of us should have an awful lot more respect for water. It is desperate the way we treat what is probably the most important resources in all our lives.

This debate represents a fantastic opportunity to put our points of view across and support Senator Garvey's motion, as my party is doing. The budget of €1.2 billion for Irish Water - it certainly will need much more in the coming years, as other speakers have stated - is a step in the right direction. We must ensure that everybody has a clean, quality water supply. I will refer to my own county in this regard.In 2015, we had 13 major water supplies on the remedial action list. By 2019-20 every one of them had been remediated. In one case, in Ballinlough, west Roscommon, 3,000 people were on a boil water notice for two years. At that time, RTÉ and others were reporting every second week from Roscommon about boil water notices. People went through sheer hell. There is no doubt about that. In some cases, water tankers had to be brought in to supply people. We are sometimes critical of our local authorities and Irish Water. If there was ever a time when officials from Irish Water and our local authorities were deserving of a pat on the back, it was in respect of their remediation of the 13 water supply issues in Roscommon in 2015. I know there is still some work to be done in the county but that work was a major step forward.

There is another area about which we need to be careful. I refer to the Irish Water public water supply monitoring programme. A recent report referenced a situation in the Ballinasloe area where the water was affected by pesticides. I am sure Senator Dolan is aware of that report. In the Ballinasloe-Connemara area there were nine instances of the pesticide limit having been exceeded in the public water supply. As Senator Dolan will be aware, in the Ballinasloe area much of the supply comes from the River Suck. I know from my horticultural work that products such as MCPA and 2,4-D are horrendous products. The problem was caused by run-off from those products. Many farmers are very careful. Some farmers told me recently that they want to reduce their use of nitrogen. A form of urea is available now that is not as damaging, but farmers are concerned about run-offs. As I mentioned earlier, there have been run-offs into rivers that support the public water supply. We have to ensure they do not occur. We must work towards having a supply that is safe for everybody.

It is good to have the Minister of State here to debate this important and positive motion. I will work will all Members to ensure all of our citizens have a good and safe public water supply.