Paul Daly (Fianna Fail)

I welcome the Minister of State, Deputy Cummins, to the Chamber. He is a former colleague here, and I think it might be the first time we have interacted since his elevation, so I congratulate him on both his election to the Lower House and his elevation to the position of Minister of State. Given the fact that we are former colleagues, I hope he will look on my request favourably.The Commencement matter refers to the need for the Minister for Housing, Local Government and Heritage to review the Uisce Éireann water connection policy in order that farmers with multiple land parcels would pay a single customer charge rather than paying for multiple connections. This is an issue of major concern in my end of the country and farther west, more so than on larger holdings in the Minister of State's neck of the woods. I know of one man who has ten meters. Some of them are on fields he cuts silage on. He does not even use any water on them, but he needs to have them because he has a fragmented holding. I also know of another gentleman who has 21 individual connections. Under the current non-domestic charges or tariff rates from Uisce Éireann that are set through the Commission for the Regulation of Utilities, CRU, framework, there is a separate charge for each connection and then a usage charge. Most dry stock farmers would probably be in band 1, so with potential increases in October, they are looking at in the region of €90-odd per connection. For the man with ten, that is €900 but for the man with 21, that is between €1,900 and €2,000 per year before he starts using or paying for any water at all. There is no way out of it or around it. If a person has a farm, even a not very big one, because of the nature of the stone walls in the west of Ireland, the person could have, as is the case here, ten, 15 or 20 different holdings in a fragmented form.

My request is that, Uisce Éireann, in conjunction with the CRU and with the Minister of State's guidance, would have a customer charge as opposed to numerous meter charges. The farmers I am referring to would know at the start of the year what their charge was, irrespective of how many connections they had.

I have had a lot of correspondence with a friend and colleague of mine, Councillor Damien Ryan, in Mayo. He has raised this issue in respect of Mayo and has used a very good analogy to do so. He notes that the current system is the equivalent of the electricity supplier basing a person's bill on the number of light switches they have in their house. This is a very good analogy and comparison in that the current system does not make sense. A person pays for the amount of electricity, or in this case the amount of water used, not the number of light switches or meters a person has.

It is important that this be looked into. I know there is a review at the moment that is somewhat delayed. The outstanding tariffs expire at the end of September of this year. There will be a new charging regime going forward. I hope I am not to late and I would like to see that this would be considered under that review.

If the Minister of State's response is not positive, I will not be going away. I do not come here to raise these issues for a Facebook post. I raise them because I feel strongly about them and I want to get something done about them for the people concerned. I will not be going away; I will be in the Minister of State's hair. Maybe today would be the day for him to save himself all that hassle and give me the positive response I want.