I probably could speak at great length on this Bill but it will be a relief to Senators present that much of what I wish to say can be said at Committee Stage. My welcome for the Bill will be muted. I welcome it as a recognition of a serious deficiency in our legislation and as an admission of such a deficiency. I welcome it as a Bill which will focus attention on a problem which I do not think it will solve. There are good things in this Bill, as there are good bits in the parson's egg; but I would not welcome being asked to eat a parson's egg at breakfast unless I was assured at the bishopric of an award for my consumption.
The first discordant note will be to agree with what Senator Deasy said when he disagreed with the control of the licensing in relation to water pollution being given to local authorities. I wholly agree with Senator Deasy; I wholly disagree with the proposals in this Bill with regard to that matter.
It is perhaps worth emphasising that the only justification I can see for being a Senator is that we survey legislation offered to us by the Executive, irrespective of which part of the House we may find ourselves in from time to time. This seems to give to local authorities, who may be the worst offenders in the matter of pollution, the licensing of other bodies in their enterprises. It is not merely a question of the poacher turning gamekeeper; it is a question of giving power to the poacher to sue the gamekeeper. More than that, it is evident to anybody who gives any consideration to the manpower availability, or the skills required to be mustered to decide what quality of water our society should determine to have, that there will not be resources available under the control of all local authorities to administer properly the powers given to them by the Bill. They are by this Bill exempt from obligations themselves in relation to the effluents that necessarily result from development and expansion of the population.
This is much too serious a matter for us not to know from the Parliamentary Secretary what precisely were the comments, to which he referred in his speech, on the report on water pollution. This report was published in 1973. The Minister said:
Comments on the working group's recommendations were submitted by a number of interested bodies and all these views were carefully considered prior to the preparation of the Bill.
What were these views? Why are we not informed as to what these views were? How can we conduct a debate unless we know what the experts think of the inter-departmental working party's recommendations? The Parliamentary Secretary said:
The Government consider that the arguments in favour of vesting the main control functions that the Bill proposes in local authorities are entirely conclusive.
This is what the Parliamentary Secretary says, but what are the arguments? Where are they? What are the arguments against the proposals? Where is the money to come from to establish laboratories at the behest of every local authority? Where is the money to staff these laboratories with technicians and supervisory technicians and analysts? If local authorities are to be free to prosecute under the Bill— as they are now; this is no disimprovement in that sense—what court will consider evidence except from those who are suitably qualified?
Our national problem is being brought home to us forcibly every day. We have reversed the trend that began with the famine. We are at the beginning of a growth in population. Instead of celebrating that and seeing in it a new dynamism, which if properly handled, properly monitored, properly guided could transform our country, we are turning it into a miserable, dismaying problem that we think, on the basis of our past experience, we can never solve.
The number of working people who have to support dependants here is the highest in Europe, but our population growth is also the highest in Europe. We must foresee a figure of 30,000 nett extra people in manufacturing employment if we are to have full employment in ten years, which was our original objective. I think this is an overestimate of the requirement but I agree with what Senator Dolan said with regard to the potential in growth of employment in services—and the toursist industry must be seen as one of the great growth areas if we can maintain stability and the type of society that we have that attracts people. Among he factors which will be attractive to the tourist is the ability to fish. Let us not talk about fishing rights and the duke and his ghillie. All forms of water recreation involve pure water; therefore, pure water is a fundamental objective to be attained by the best means available. Among our problems are these: we must be extremely prudent and careful about the use of our resources. I wish every newspaper printed daily on the front page: "In Ireland, as distinct from the United Kingdom, the average per capita income is only £70, compared to their £100”. Therefore, our resources are limited and we must manage them all the more skilfully and carefully.
I see lurking behind the section requiring local authorities to put their house in order, to curb their flow of effluent, the question of the ability to finance it. Why put an obligation on them that on a date unspecified they must provide all these things? We do not know when this Bill will come into force: somebody should tell us. It may never become law if an order has to be made making it a law when it is enacted, if I read the Bill correctly. How slow will the Minister be to do this, if the result is that money will have to be provided out of public funds to set up laboratories suitably staffed in 26 or more local authorities all over the country?
The Parliamentary Secretary has said that examination has been made of the different systems in various countries. I would like to know the result of that examination. In the United Kingdom there is a water council to co-ordinate all water managements. I would like to see this Bill amended so as to give to an established body, with access to the skill of which there is a limited amount available, the power itself to licence. Or at least this body should be technically so equipped that they would specify the qualities to be attained on a statutory basis before the Minister made the orders with which people engaged in either agricultural or industrial development would have to comply.
The Parliamentary Secretary fairly said in his small revelation in regard to the comments made on the working group's recommendations submitted by a number of interested bodies that these views were carefully considered. If the Parliamentary Secretary and the Government can have the opportunity of considering them why cannot we have the same opportunity when we are considering a Bill enacting some but not all of the provisions of the inter-departmental committee's report?
The Parliamentary Secretary said that, while there was general agreement on the type of measures needed to control water pollution, there was and may still be some difference of opinion on the issue of who should administer the new controls. I am sure there was a great difference of opinion. No matter how conclusive the conclusion of the Government may have been, a conclusion is as good as the arguments on which that conclusion is reached and no better.
Admittedly, the working group came out in favour of controls at local level. But there are alternatives. Some people favour control by a national board, others by regional or river authorities. My own view with regard to what is proposed on this aspect is that it is a totally untenable position to have local authorities exempted from requirements. The section dealing with local authorities is so wide open that I could see myself talking about it here in ten years' time —assuming I was still here—and that section might not have been operated. It is an untenable position that local authorities which themselves pour effluent into rivers or harbours should be prosecuting somebody who is giving employment to perhaps 2,000 people and that these authorities should be empowered after the third year to change a licence which has been granted. This situation should be changed.
Could I explain why I think this general debate on environment and preservational development unnaturally puts one group against another? I do not want to argue that the lamb should lie down with the lion and feel entirely safe in yielding to the blandishments of the lion; but as regards the sort of society we wish to create I think the national interest is united.
It will be in our interest—putting it on a grossly material basis—to attract tourists. That is a conservative point of view and when people talk about others being conservative, there are all sorts of conservatives. Some conservatives must be very progressive and active to conserve and preserve things that are worth conserving and preserving, and the purity and tenderness of our waters is one of these. That is merely for the tourists coming in, to provide us with income which makes it possible for our children to obtain employment—those 20,000 extra jobs a year—and create demand for the products of Irish industry. But the very enjoyment of life by our people will be involved. The attractiveness of this place as one in which to invest can be greater if we preserve some of our waters which—I am thinking of the Donegal region—are I understand, among the purest in all Europe.
Coming late to the industrial game we can learn from other people's mistakes. It is interesting to note that one of the Acts we are repealing is the River Pollution Act, 1876. So, a hundred years ago we began to think there might be a pollution problem. I should imagine it was the men with the fishing rights who got that piece of legislation through.
Could I explain the problem of somebody who is thinking of setting up a business here? I do not at all think purely in terms of foreign industrialists who have provided a dynamic element in our development in the last 15 to 20 years, but we may well have to think of activating our domestic savings by a suitable scheme. One of the things I have often been asked by foreigners is: "What is to be our position in regard to environmental control?" They know that environmental control should exist in any sophisticated society and should match the needs of the people. All I could say up to this was: "It depends on what the planning authorities will say is required and I think they will be affected by what the Industrial Development Authority will require." I could not give them a clear statement as to what they had to comply with and attain as a basis on which they could measure out the cost of the operation for them. If there was a central authority specifying the environmental requirements this would meet the position. The Americans, in particular, love to see the legislation to see what their rights are and what it will cost them and what their obligations are. Very often these people have a half-a-dozen options before them when they are considering the location of a new industry. They become very dissatisfied if they do not know clearly how they will be fixed. The Minister has come out very quickly with the finding in relation to the Dublin Bay refinery project and that is good.
I agree with what Senator Deasy said about the impact of this on the farmer because, as the Parliamentary Secretary will know, slurry is only pumped eventually into rivers that are controlled. There is no control at all in this Bill in the case of the farmer who spreads his slurry at inappropriate times—or appropriate according to the view he takes—so that the water washes it off to the river. I recognise also the difficulties in enforcing control. The Parliamentary Secretary is probably right when he says that it is only through the agricultural advisory service and the education of the people concerned that this kind of problem can be solved.
Those who have to report our proceedings here in the morning paper find that if they do not get their material out in time the people will not read what we said here today. If there is a date line it must be complied with unless there is some tolerance with regard to the date line, as I suspect there may be in certain situations. Assuming we are going to be stuck with the local authorities operating this spread-out machinery, dispersed manpower and skill, there is a right of appeal but there is no time limit on when the Minister may decide. I know that if I were able, and if I say to people who who would look to me for information: "There is no time limit; I will tell you in 1990" they would then go off to somebody who would tell them in 1976. We are the Legislature; we enact the laws. The Executive propose the laws to us. The Executive may not like some of the obligations of the laws. I suggest we impose on the Minister and his advisers an obligation to make up his mind on an appeal within a specified time. If we do not, we may stop projects which will not go on because the promoters will not wait indefinitely. Other things quite unconnected with Ireland happen when time is passing. A decision which is being made in favour of Ireland for a development is changed and the project is lost. The quicker the standards are discoverable either by publication or from a central authority, the better.
I would favour, though I am not an administrative person, the advice of some central authority. The fact that these regulations are discoverable and changeable from time to time is important. They must change because there are technological changes affecting the effluent itself. There will be increases in knowledge as to the effect of it, whether the effluent is changed in nature or not. There will be the general impact of a development on the people.
In this House there were times when everybody thought you could spend money on anything and Senator Russell and I always said that there was a limit to the resources available whether you were referring to the city and state of New York or Ireland in a very bad depression. There is always the limitation: you have to make a choice. At this moment we have a situation in which we know we will have a growing population that we know will have to be housed when they grow up and marry. It will be a national defeat of the first order if emigration starts again. It would have appallingly bad consequences on the people who remain. We know these things. We know that they will need new schools and better facilities. We know our resources are limited. We know that the sewage and sanitary problem will be aggravated by the additional accommodation required.
At this moment domestic savings are at an extraordinary high level. There may be technical difficulties in the matter of borrowing in the sense of the ratio that is to be preserved between the level of national borrowing and the gross national product of last year. But at this moment launching expenditure, financed by savings that are positively bulging out of the banks, to provide employment that would generate income which would provide revenue and come in relief with the Exchequer would surely be justified. It would be, to a large degree, self-financing and would provide for a future when we know that all those things will be needed.
I do not know who made the decision about the £20 million Grand Canal scheme but it was a good decision. That, with the developments in Ringsend and Poolbeg will greatly reduce the amenity problem created by the disregard of this problem over the previous 20 years. Dublin Bay was one of our great glories from the point of view of the enjoyment of it by people who came to, or who lived in Dublin. We should not regard the sums involved in coping with the Clondalkin Paper Mill effluent coming into the Camac and polluting the Liffey as anything other than creating wealth for the people even if it does not generate immediate cash. Schemes like this should now be considered to put people to work. This can be done without any foreign borrowing. I would face the consequences of looking at the EEC Commission in a slightly repentant and explanatory mood with far greater heart than I look at the consequences of people unemployed who could be doing good work for the future of the country and for the future of their children. In relation to this Bill I mean by that that the licensing should be taken away from the local authority and given to some central group or regional group advised by a central group. The local authorities should be told: "You have got such and such a period of time to put your house in order. Here is a new scheme financed which should be well presented to the people which is going to be for the investors' benefit and the benefit of their children. Their savings being eroded in the bank by inflation are not going to be much good to them."
There is provision in this Bill for prosecutions by no less than three different authorities for breaches. That does not make any sense. In relation to a new industry, Governments should consider, as they do in regard to their own manpower, the proper utilisation of manpower in the new industry, so that their work is worth while and properly directed. There will be communications to the boards of conservators, to the local authorities, to the Minister for Agriculture and Fisheries. Any one of the three can prosecute. Any one of the three can make entry at any time, apparently, although, I presume reasonable times will be inserted in the order.
With regard to the effectiveness of the prosecution, there is to be a presumption that what is certified to be the result of the analysis of a sample taken is correct. There is no provision such as there is in the UK that, when the inspector of the water authority comes in and takes a sample, he must divide it into three parts and give one to the intended accused, so that the intended accused can find out what answer has he got. In this case the public authority take the sample. There is no obligation to give any part of it to the alleged offender. Is that fair? Is that the Just Society we looked for—that the presumption should be in favour of the authority without any obligation on the authority to provide the persons alleged to have committed these environmental offences with a sample. I do not think it is fair and I suggest it ought to be amended.
I have covered a good deal of what I wanted to say, but I would not like to end on a note which did not recognise something I think ought to be recognised. I am sure it may even lie behind the reason the Government, or the Department, have advised the Minister that the system of planning permissions has worked reasonably well. Indeed it has, and it is right that I should say it. In fact, since about 1970, when there was an increasing awareness that you could get industry at too great an ultimate cost to the people, there has been an increasing tendency for the planning authority to specify what advice it has got in regard to what should be done by the company proposed to be set up. Of course, both new and existing industries have found themselves in the position in the last five or six years, particularly the last three—and I am not saying that for a political reason but it happens to be true—that the Industrial Development Authority will not give grants to new industry and will not assist in the adaptation and re-equipment of old ones unless they can comply as far as possible with environmental requirements.
In a situation where there was no legislation the answer one had to give people was, "Look, the planning authority are sensible. They are aware of the problem and concerned about it. The same applies to the IDA and the Institute for Industrial Research and Standards." In the context of what I have said before, to some extent the work of these bodies has been anticipating the solution of the problem which has been raised for public debate, properly raised for public debate here. But the debate is insufficiently informed about the nature of the criticisms. First, there is the inter-departmental committee's report. We do not know their recommendations. But many of these people must come from semi-Government bodies and therefore they are not buccaneers like ourselves who can say what we like. Their recommendations should be published. We should know what these criticisms are. We should know what the problems are in full dimension. If it is a question of cost, let us say it and let us know it.
The fact that industrial pollution has to a very great extent been improved should be noted, though there are limitations. Senator Russell, coming from an area where there is a lot of old industries, is aware of it. It is all very well if you are looking for a re-equipment grant and are told that you will get it if you provide for the effluent resulting from the expansion involved. If I am informed correctly about Limerick, there are 40 separate outlets pouring effluent into the waters in the area. At least, Senator Russell said so. You see the nature of the problem. It is very important.
I will be saying a lot more on Committee Stage. I will just mention one thing of purely academic interest. Are there enormous problems in defining the sea, or is it simply good sense in not to having regard to the Law of the Sea Conference? It is not in the Interpretation Act. It had been defined in various statutes in different countries. It would be useful for us, I think, to know. Should there not be a definition of the sea? Should we not look at it and perhaps have a lengthy debate on the definition section on Committee Stage and have a look at the words which appear throughout?
