I thank the Cathaoirleach for allowing me to raise this matter and I welcome the Minister of State to the House. I hoped the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government, Deputy Cullen, would attend, but I understand he is ill.
I have raised the issue of the Castlebar treatment plant to ask how it will be funded. Everyone involved recently received a national development plan document in which the Minister for the Environment, Heritage and Local Government promised the provision of €5.4 billion for the water services investment programme over the next number of years. The Minister says that in addition to the 41 schemes at construction stage, 367 schemes will commence construction between 2003 and 2005. A further 98 schemes are at planning stage and will commence construction later in the national development plan and 231 schemes are to commence under the serviced land and rural towns and villages initiatives. The majority of those schemes will come on stream in the same way as the scheme at Castlebar. Part of the work at Castlebar has been carried out, but the substantial element which includes the construction of the new treatment unit and the extension of pipelines has not.
Although I have been a local authority member for almost 25 years, I cannot figure out how this scheme will operate. I have asked the county manager and several other council officials, but no one has to date been able to outline how the design, build and operate aspects of the scheme will affect the lives of people in the town, especially those in the business community. I have reservations about the design, build and operate scheme which will have major cost implications for the business community. There will be no real accountability. Under the conventional system there was accountability to local authority members who were able to address cost issues in the local authority estimates. Once a design, build and operate scheme is agreed and put in place local authority members will have no say. The county manager will receive a bill once a year and local authority members will have no choice but to levy charges across the business community. In this instance, it will not only be the business community which pays, farmers will also pay. The charge will probably relate to the amount of water used and the amount of sewage generated. While there is no way to control the amount of sewage generated, it will be possible to control and monitor the amount of water used by each business premises or farm.
I would like the Minister to outline in detail the way in which the Castlebar scheme will operate and be funded. I would also like to know what consequences will face the business community. Design, build and operate schemes are put in place for a 20 to 25 year period. Once the local authority is locked in to a scheme, there is no way out. Given the multi-billion euro investment proposed, it is time the Government told local authority members and Members of the Houses of the Oireachtas how these schemes are to operate. Nobody can tell anyone how a design, build and operate scheme or, for that matter, a public private partnership will work. I hope the Minister of State can outline to the House the way in which they will operate over the next 20 years.