Brendan Howlin (Wexford, Labour)
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Question 181: To ask the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government his views on increasing the grant aid available for sewerage schemes (details supplied) to the same level as that available for group water schemes; the reason for the considerable difference in contributions by his Department as between these two schemes; and if he will make a statement on the matter. [42118/06]

Dick Roche (Wicklow, Fianna Fail)
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Demand for group sewerage scheme grants arises mainly from small village communities and clusters of houses situated close to towns/villages that have public sewerage facilities. Unlike the abstraction, treatment and distribution of water by a group water scheme, group sewerage scheme activity is confined to the provision of significantly less costly collection systems and this is reflected in the relative values of the grants currently available. My Department is funding a pilot programme, proposed by the National Rural Water Monitoring Committee, to test a range of new, small-scale waste water collection and treatment systems under Irish conditions. The objective of the pilot programme is to evaluate new approaches to meeting the waste water collection and treatment needs of rural communities and to examine the potential role for group sewerage schemes in extending collection systems to households outside the catchment of new or existing sewerage schemes. Construction of the pilot projects is currently underway and monitoring of the performance of the new infrastructure by the National Rural Water Monitoring Committee will commence immediately after commissioning takes place. I have asked the Committee to report on the results as they become available. I intend to review the grants for group sewerage schemes in light of the outcome of the pilot programme.